Smokescreens
by the lurker
Summary: When Home Secretary Towers tasks Harry with a black-op, he chooses to protect the team and go it alone, risking life, love and the respect of his colleagues for the sake of Queen and country.  Spoilers through 9.1.
1. Prologue

I shall take advantage of some free time before everything is rolling at full speed once again... cheers!

**

* * *

Prologue**

It was a particularly cold night in London, and Harry stamped his feet trying to keep warm. He glanced at his watch: 12 minutes late. It didn't fill him with confidence. He watched while a vendor sold another bag of roasted chestnuts to a tourist, and he couldn't help but think the meeting location odd, but his place in this situation wasn't to question, but to follow. He watched another bag being sold and thought about buying one, if for no other reason than to keep warm, but two quid for a bag of roasted chestnuts seemed a bit extravagant.

He heard the jovial voice from behind, and he started slightly. "Walk with me, Harry."

He shook hands and then fell in step with the home secretary, the man's security detail following discreetly behind.

"No disrespect intended, home secretary, but isn't Covent Garden a rather odd place for a meeting of this type?"

"Not really, Harry, if you think about it. Most of these people here wouldn't recognize me in a crowd of one – they're all from somewhere else!"

"Ah, yes, hiding in plain sight," the spook in him smiled.

"I just wanted to make sure that you were on track with Oil Rigger, Harry?"

"Yes sir. I will begin to implement the protocol tonight."

"Very well. I know this is going to be difficult on you, and for that, I'm sorry."

"Yes, home secretary."

The home secretary stopped their walk with a light hand on Harry's arm. "You're the only one who can make this happen, Harry, and no matter what the cost, we cannot afford to lose these assets. Is that clear?"

"Yes sir."

The home secretary could see the apprehension and anguish in Pearce's eyes. "What is it, Harry? Don't tell me you're scared…"

"For me, no…"

"Ah, your team."

"Yes."

The home secretary patted him on the shoulder. "It's going to be fine, old son. There's going to be a little pain in the short term, but if all goes according to plan, it'll be all right in the end." He could easily see Harry was struggling, and he squeezed the shoulder underneath his hand. "It all comes down to you, Harry…"

"I'll do whatever it takes to end the threat to Oil Rigger, home secretary, you know that."

"Yes, Harry, yes I do." He smiled at his ally. "I just wish there was something I could say to make it easier on you."

"There isn't, sir."

"I know."

And with that the home secretary and his detail departed, and Harry, feeling the need to clear his head, began to walk aimlessly through the streets of London. It had been a long time since he had taken a walking tour of the West End…

TBC


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Ruth looked at her watch, it was half past ten and he did not have a meeting scheduled off the Grid that would explain his absence. In all the years she'd known him, he'd never been this late in the morning, and she couldn't help but worry. She glanced at the other members of the team, and they were all hard at work; all except Lucas who was looking directly at her. When their eyes met, he smiled weakly, stood and walked over to her desk.

"Everything okay, Ruth?"

Ruth's brow crinkled, unsure whether or not she should point it out. She sighed.

"He's never this late, Lucas."

"Have you called him?" He asked simply.

"Erm, n-no." One of Lucas' eyebrows raised in question, and she stuttered slightly. "W-well, I… I just didn't think that it was…"

Her voice died out and Lucas leaned in closer. "Ruth, I know the two of you have had some problems lately—" Her horrified look stopped him and he quickly regrouped. "I just meant that it's been a bit obvious that the two of you haven't been getting on all that well, and—" If looks could wilt, he would have been quite crumpled by her look. "I'm sure he's fine," Lucas finally said, "let's just give him a few more minutes before we sound the alarm, all right?"

He smiled at her and walked back to his desk. Ruth wanted to swallow her tongue. She was overreacting, he was right. But bloody hell, did the entire Grid know that she and Harry were not quite Jean and Lionel Hardcastle? The thought of it made her ill. But then, Harry had been more than just prickly since the muck-up in the churchyard. If only he hadn't said anything; if only he hadn't asked her…

The sound of a pod caught her attention and she felt an inexplicable relief when she saw Harry step onto the Grid. She could feel Lucas' eyes on her and she glanced over at him only to see his "I told you so" smile. It was irritating to say the least. As Harry passed by her desk, she took a good look at him and was alarmed by his sickly pallor. A frown covered her features, but for the moment she thought better of saying anything given the dark look on his face.

She decided keeping an eye on him was the better course.

* * *

Harry called for a briefing six minutes after Tariq had brought the intel to his attention. The team gathered around the table and waited for Pearce, who straggled in, looking a little worse for the wear, although he wasted no time launching into the briefing.

"As you know, Tariq has uncovered intel which suggests unusual movements in the Middle Eastern region. Tariq?"

The young man nodded and hit the button on a remote which flashed satellite pictures upon the screen behind him.

"As you can see from these visuals," his fingers continued to advance to the corresponding pictures as he spoke, "there has been a lot of activity moving both troops official and unofficial along with the shifting of assets and supplies over the past 12 hours. Between these photos, internet chatter and some intel from 6 about uncovering a secret Middle Eastern network that's in place here in the UK and other allied nations, we have a credible threat."

Harry reached behind his neck and squeezed the muscles there as he said, "Ruth?"

Tariq sat and Ruth took over.

"The noise that 6 have uncovered is that a network of human time bombs will unleash a biological weapon unlike anything we've ever seen sometime within the next 48 hours. Our colleagues from 6 believe that this chain of terrorists were planted here about 20 years ago as a counterbalance to a network of allied spies in the Middle East."

"Are you saying we have human time bombs planted in that part of the world?" Beth asked incredulously.

Ruth shook her head. "No, no, not exactly. Apparently the allied network are in key positions in the regimes throughout the Middle East to be able to give advanced warning of nuclear or other global threats to Allied nations, nothing more. They were not placed there to sabotage or interfere, they are there only as an early warning system. The allies were of course unaware at the time that any kind of counterbalance was in place; that was only revealed about ten years ago when the United Arab Emirates felt threatened by the Americans and deemed it beneficial to their position to leak the existence of these networks throughout allied nations."

"So," Lucas interrupted, "what brought on the impending attack in the UK now and why did 6 wait so long to let us in on it?"

"Our contacts at 6 tell us it was triggered by an assassination attempt on the PM of Iraq, Nouri al-Malik, by a member of this supposed allied network."

"You sound skeptical, Ruth," Harry commented.

She looked at him and couldn't help but notice the shade of grey that he had turned in the past 30 minutes, but for the moment addressed his concern.

"I spent most of the morning searching our entire archives on anything remotely related to such a thing as an allied network of spies in the Middle East, and I have to admit that I have come up empty-handed. So yes, I am skeptical of its existence." She paused and then added, "Also, if the allied network is 'secret' how would the UAE know who the members of the network are, and if they did, would they not simply eliminate them?"

"These are excellent points she's making, Harry," Lucas commented, staring at Pearce, noticing the sheen of sweat that had broken out over his forehead in the past 15 minutes.

"Do you suppose," Beth pondered, "that the UAE could simply be using the existence of such a network and the recent assassination attempt as an excuse to launch an attack on the allied nations?"

"But to what end?" Ruth asked.

Lucas responded, "What if the UAE doesn't _really_ know that such a network exists – if it in fact does – it would be one way to call a bluff, wouldn't it?"

Harry sighed, wiping a hand across his brow. "Look, whether or not such a network exists in the Middle East is of little consequence to us at this moment. Our concern must be the security of the British public, which at this time is under threat." He loosened his tie in an effort to keep from passing out from the heat in the room. "Beth and Lucas, I want you two to devise two plans. One is best case scenario, as in we can find out who these 20 people are and stop them; and the other is worse case scenario…"

"You mean how do we contain the outbreak of a biological weapon?" Beth said staring at him.

"That's right," Harry responded, once again mopping sweat from his brow.

Lucas frowned. "Harry, are you all right?"

"Fine, Lucas, it's just a little hot in here…"

"No, Harry, it's not," Lucas responded, looking at Ruth.

"Well, I'm a little warm," Harry growled. He paused collecting himself then continued, "Look, Beth and Lucas, you know what to do. Tariq, Ruth, I'd like the two of you to keep digging and see if you can find anything that might lead us to who the members of the UAE network are… I'd rather we implement plan A as opposed to plan B." He stared at his team who were all staring at him, looks of concern on their face. He growled at them, "Get moving, we don't have time to waste on this!"

They all cleared out quickly, except for Ruth, who put a strong hand on Harry's shoulder, keeping him in his chair until the team had cleared the room. She put a hand to his forehead and he was hot to the touch.

"Harry, you're running a fever."

"It's just a little cold, Ruth, nothing more."

She knelt next to his chair then, her hand on his arm. "You look a shade of grey that our species is not supposed to take on…"

He smiled at her then; it was a smile she hadn't seen in a very long time. "I'll be fine, really. Don't worry, Ruth."

She sensed that he was lying to her, but for the moment she let him win. "All right, Harry, if you say so." She stood, concern filling her features.

"I do," he said as he stood slowly.

Ruth didn't like anything about it, but she knew they had a job to do, and she also knew that she could keep an eye on him from her desk.

"If you need anything…"

"I'll let you know."

She walked out and slowly, and he followed feeling more dreadful than he thought any living breathing person could feel.

TBC


	3. Chapter 2

This chapter carries a warning: some of you might be ready to send ninjas my way to do me harm after reading this... If you suspect that you can't cope with a rather heart-wrenching plot twist, stop reading now - my days of fighting off fanfiction ninjas are long over! Cheers. :)

* * *

**Chapter 2**

Ruth's eyes flicked up to observe him through the glass as he leaned his forehead on his hand. A moment later he got up, filled a glass of water and took yet more paracetamol; it was at least the fourth time in the past six hours he had done so. Ruth thought about going to him, but no sooner had the thought flitted across her mind, he turned, caught her watching him and glared his worst at her. She shook her head and sighed, returning her attention to her work.

The buzzing of her cell phone a moment later, made her look down as a text message flashed across it; it was from Lucas, who was sitting not ten feet away. Her eyes flicked up to meet his across their computer screens, and she looked at the text message:

_He looks like hell. What's wrong?_

Ruth looked back up at him and shook her head, shrugging slightly. He looked down and a moment later her phone buzzed again.

_Can't you talk to him?_

Ruth looked back up at him and shook her head, then texted Lucas back:

_I tried after the briefing; he brushed me off._

Lucas frowned and texted once more:

_Keep your eye on him. If it gets worse, we're sending for an MD no matter how much he protests._

She looked up at him and nodded.

Three hours passed and Ruth was becoming frustrated with her lack of progress. If there was such an early-warning allied network in the Middle East, or a human timebomb counterpart in the UK, she sure as hell couldn't find them. Sighing she decided she needed a cup of tea. She stood and glanced in through the glass of Harry's office, and the sight of him sent her stomach to her knees. She wasted no time going to him.

"Harry, I'm done arguing with you… You look bloody awful, and I'm calling for a doctor."

"Ruth," he said, rubbing his left arm, "I'm okay."

She looked at him, jacket and tie gone, sleeves rolled up, shirt unbuttoned several from the top and perspiration on every inch of him that she could see.

She walked over and turned his chair around to face her behind his desk. "You are most certainly not okay." His eyes flicked away and he sighed heavily; it was the first sign of his capitulation, and she knew it. "Just let me call a doctor and have you checked over…"

"Ruth, honestly, I appreciate your concern, especially since… you know, we haven't been getting on that well, but we need to keep trying to unravel the players in this Middle Eastern nightmare. The clock is ticking and we need to stay on task." His voice turned soft, slightly sensual; the voice she knew so well from their past, "We don't have time for anything else right now, believe me."

She frowned at him. "What is going on, Harry? You're not telling me everything. You haven't turned on the charm for me since I turned you down in the churchyard. You can't think I'm so daft that I don't recognize it—"

His voice was immediately filled with ire, "Get off of it, Ruth. Every single time you and I have a tactical disagreement you have to reference what happened after Ros' funeral. _Every_ time. This is not all about you, you know." He stood then, his anger taking over. "And not everything that goes on in my life is about you either—"

"—How dare you, Harry."

"How dare I?"

"Yes, how bloody dare you say such a thing to me. Not a day has gone by when you haven't punished me for saying no to you. Not one damned day."

The entire Grid had come to a halt as the two of them screamed at each other, and Lucas knew he had to put a stop to it. He stood and headed toward the office.

"I have not punished you for it, Ruth, not at all."

Her anger at his audacity overtook her. "The hell you haven't. You've frozen me out, ignored me, treated me with outright coldness, diminishing respect and at times contempt, and all because I don't love you!"

And that stopped him dead. He stared at her for a long moment before sitting down heavily in his chair.

"Because you don't love me," he echoed softly. His broken eyes looked painfully back up to hers. "You said it was because of everything that we'd seen together; because of the—" His voice broke as he choked on the words, "because of the choices we'd made." Tears filled his eyes as he continued to stare disbelieving into hers. "You never said it was because you don't love me…"

Ruth felt nauseous. She hadn't meant to say anything that cruel, nor that patently false. How had it escalated so fast and so far? Lucas chose that moment to barge in.

"Look you two," he said softly, "it's none of my business, but everything you're screaming at each other can be heard on the Grid. Need I remind the two of you that we are in the midst of a national crisis and you need to table your personal issues until after—"

"—Lucas…" Harry's voice was strained and he was breathing strangely. "You're right, of course…"

Harry grimaced in pain and grabbed his chest, "Damnit…"

"Harry?" Lucas was at his side quickly, holding his arms. "Harry, what is it?"

"My chest…" he breathed heavily, "feels like it's exploding…"

"Oh God, Harry," Ruth cried as she crossed to the other side of him.

Harry grimaced painfully. "Lucas," he hissed.

"Jesus Christ," Lucas exclaimed, "he's having a heart attack…" Lucas stood and screamed, "Beth! Beth, call an ambulance….hurry!"

Through the glass Beth looked terror stricken, but grabbed for a phone and did as Lucas bade her.

Harry leaned back in his desk chair, gasping for air, gripping his chest with his left hand, his skin a deathly color grey.

Tears fell quick and hot down Ruth's cheeks as she rubbed her hand along the right side of his chest. "Harry, please, please…not like this, Harry, not you, not like this," she sobbed. She leaned her forehead against his, her breath hot on his face as she gently kissed his cheek, her tears falling onto his face.

Harry cupped Ruth's cheek with his right hand, and her tearful eyes met his. "Ruth, I understand now how wrong it was of me to love you…" She sobbed harder, and gasped for air as he continued, "I'm sorry, so sorry to have burdened you like that all of these years." Ruth sobs were coming quicker, one after another. "Shhh, it's all right, it wasn't your fault. It was mine." His voice grew softer and weaker, "Four years ago on the dock, you didn't let me tell you how I felt, and now I understand why, Ruth." He paused, swallowing hard as the pain in his chest increased causing him to grimace in anguish. But he forced himself to press on. "And still, I don't regret it, Ruth. I don't regret loving you. I loved you more than I ever thought a man could love, and I became a better man because of it." He looked deeply into her eyes and swallowed down his pain. "I was a better man because of you, Ruth. I pray you can remember me as a good and dear friend…"

As he let go of her, Ruth collapsed onto his right thigh, sobbing. She couldn't bear to hear any more, and still, even now, as he was dying, she couldn't bring herself to say the truth…

Harry reached out for Lucas, who took his left hand. "Lucas…"

"Here," Lucas held onto Harry's hand tightly. "I'm right here. Just hold on, Harry, EMTs are on the way…"

Harry smiled gently, and stared hard into the young man's eyes. "Don't let them win, Lucas. Don't let them…"

And his eyes glazed over, his chest released one last breath, and the man they had known as Harry Pearce was gone in the blink of an eye.

TBC


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Lucas gently pulled Ruth away from Harry's body so that the EMTs could take care of him. He moved her out of the office and handed her off to Beth, who sat her in the nearest chair. Ruth was shell-shocked. Her limbs were shaking uncontrollably and while she was no longer sobbing, tears continued to flow down her face in a steady stream. Beth knelt in front of her, taking Ruth's hands in her own.

"Ruth…it's going to be all right."

Ruth's tear-filled eyes stared into Beth's. "No, it won't, Beth." Her eyes glanced over toward the windows of Harry's office, and she had to stifle another sob as she looked down at the floor. "My God it will never be all right again."

Beth rubbed a soft hand over Ruth's arm. "I'll make us some sweet tea…" Ruth began to sob uncontrollably then, and Beth, not understanding the underlying meaning for Ruth, repeated, "I'll just make some tea…"

Lucas patted Tariq's shoulder on his way past his desk. "Keep calm and carry on, mate. Harry'd expect nothing less."

Tariq nodded as he angrily wiped a stray tear from his face. Lucas went into Harry's office and watched as the EMTs moved silently through their protocol, finally transferring Harry's body from the chair to a gurney.

"W-was it…" He barely recognized his own voice past the shakiness of it, "Was it a heart attack?"

One of the men glanced at him. "Looks like it, sir, yes."

Lucas swallowed hard and looked down, nodding. After a moment, he said, "You know the protocol for the body of a member of security services?"

"Yes sir, we know where to take him."

Lucas fought the tears which were threatening to come as they pulled the white sheet over Harry's face, and not knowing what else to do, he silently followed the gurney out onto the Grid. As they slowly moved past Ruth, she grabbed the arm of the lead EMT, stopping him. She silently stood up, wiped her face of tears and removed the sheet from Harry's face.

He looked so peaceful lying there, almost as if he were just asleep; except that his face was far too pale. Stifling the sob that was building in her throat, Ruth reached out and caressed the face that she had known for so long and so well. The broad face with the beautifully rounded features and full lips that she had once kissed; how that kiss had stayed with her. It seemed so unfair that she remembered that one kiss so well and so hard. His lips had been so soft and gentle, sensual in movement and chaste in tenderness. How could she have denied him for so long? How could she have denied herself? And now it was too late.

Tears began to flow down her cheeks once again, as Ruth reached down to run her fingers through the curls around the back of Harry's head. How she had loved him and denied it, until the bitter end. She chewed her lip at that thought; how was she going to live with those last few minutes? A sob finally escaped her throat and she bent down and kissed his lips lightly; they were still slightly warm, and for a brief, sorrowful moment, Ruth Evershed pretended that he was still with her sharing it.

She put her hands on either side of his face and bent down into his ear, whispering, "I loved you more than life, Harry, and now I'm to live the rest of mine in regret because I was too afraid to admit it."

She pressed her forehead into his cheek and kissed him once more before replacing the sheet over him. Nodding to the EMTs, she stepped away and quietly went into Harry's office and sat down in the chair facing his desk, where she always sat. And she stared into the desk chair she'd no longer find him in late at night. She closed her eyes and breathed in; she could still smell his scent – a mix of cologne and scotch. She wrapped her arms around herself and began to rock in the chair, crying the despair of one who had never allowed herself to really love at all.

Lucas watched Ruth through the glass and stopped Beth as the young woman was headed toward the office carrying a mug of tea. "Beth, I think this is one time that sweet tea isn't going to help." He looked back at the anguish on Ruth's face. "I think we need to just let her be for awhile." He looked at those still on the Grid and said, "I know we've all just suffered a devastating blow, and while we'll have time to grieve later, right now our first duty is to stay on task and uncover the biological threat. The clock is ticking." He paused and licked his lips. "And Harry wouldn't want it any other way."

Lucas sat down at his own desk, and picked up his phone, hitting a number on speed dial. It rang a few times before it was answered.

"This is Lucas North, security chief of Section-D at MI-5, code alpha tango charlie gold three…."

The voice on the other end of the line responded, "Hold for the home secretary."

"Lucas," the home secretary said, "what's happened?"

Lucas swallowed hard and replied, "If you're not sitting down, home secretary, I think you should…"

* * *

The medical examiner tasked with the autopsy of Harry Pearce headed toward the forensic labs in no particular hurry. From what he'd heard this one was a 50-something spook who died of a heart attack in his office, nothing at all too exciting for a spy, he thought. He set his coffee mug down and reached for his lab coat when a large hand attached to a dark suit grabbed his arm. He froze as he stared into the burly man's gaze.

The man in the suit growled at him, as he thrust a paper and pen at him. "Read it and sign."

The medical examiner stared at the top page for a moment. "And if I don't want to sign the secrecy act?"

The burly suit leaned down into his face. "You have a freezer down here?"

Not getting it, the doctor nodded, "Well of course we do you blithering idiot, it's a coroner's office!"

The burly suit smiled at him. "Good. Sign the paper or plan to spend some quality time in stiff storage."

* * *

The black Range Rover pulled onto the old airfield in the dead of night, and all that could be seen out the windows were what the headlights illumined. The car came to a stop about 20 feet from a dark Audi. The back door of the Audi opened and the home secretary lumbered out and walked over to the Range Rover, opened the back passenger side door and sat down. He glanced at the man on his right, and smiled.

"For a dead man, you don't look all that awful, Harry."

Pearce sighed heavily. "I may not look it, but I feel it."

"Sorry for that, the drug unfortunately is a little rough on the system."

One of Harry's eyebrows lifted with irritation at the words 'a little,' but he chose to leave it, moving on to more pressing business. "Are you sure about this, home secretary?"

"I don't see any other way round the problem, do you?"

"Not really, no." Harry looked down at his hands and sighed heavily again.

The home secretary patted him on the shoulder. "I am sorry, Harry. But you are the only one left with all the pieces, and you were unwilling to share it with anyone else. You left me with little choice."

Harry's tone was less than calm, "I was certainly unwilling to put anyone else's life at risk by passing on what I know, that's true. Two men have already died because of what they knew, and the prime minister of Iran almost joined them."

"You do have a plan, don't you Harry?"

"Yes."

The home secretary looked at him hard. "I don't like that you won't tell me how you're going to handle this..."

Harry reached for the door handle of the car. "You don't want to know, home secretary. If something goes wrong, you will have complete deniability, and well, I'm dead already, so…"

"You can just stay that way if need be." He looked Harry in the eyes and saw a mixture of regret and sadness there. "We're counting on you, Harry. We need the allied assets in place in the Middle East should we ever actually need them to fulfill their true function, and we need to eliminate one way or the other the UAE sleepers before they unleash a biological attack in the UK."

Harry moved to leave and the home secretary grabbed the sleeve of his black jacket. "You understand what I'm saying to you, don't you?"

"Yes, I do."

"_Regnum defende_, Harry…"

"At any cost, home secretary, I understand."

"I still think it would have been easier to use Section-D for this..."

Harry glared at him. "Absolutely not." Off an irritated look, he explained, "all due respect, home secretary, but my people did not join MI-5 to become assassins."

"Assassins? That's a strong word, Sir Harry."

Pearce hated when his title was used to manipulate him, and he sighed. "I cannot and will not ask them to do what I am not willing to do myself."

"Be careful, Harry… and don't call me. I'm going to Washington to see the Americans."

Harry glared at him. "You bloody hate Washington, and the Americans…"

"I bloody hate _this_, Harry." He turned his gaze away from the spy. "Good luck."

Harry closed the door to the Range Rover and both cars drove off in the dead of night. Harry moved quickly across the airfield to the waiting helicopter and boarded it, zipping up his black jacket over his black turtleneck. It was cold, and he really hated to be without a heavy coat…

TBC


	5. Chapter 4

Thanks to those who have reviewed, always appreciated. Now on for a look at "Field Harry..."

* * *

**Chapter 4**

The noise of the helicopter was in a strange way comforting to him. He chose to use the time to check his equipment, and to that end checked the magazine and safety of his 9mm Glock, and the small duffel bag containing a silencer, sniper rifle, rope, wire cutters and many other small tools that he thought might come in handy along with a small toiletry kit pre-paid cell phone and a change of dark clothing. Satisfied that his equipment was ready, he closed his eyes in the hopes that he might be able to doze for the ride out to meet his contact. But instead of rest, his mind turned to an inevitable subject: Ruth.

He swallowed down the lump that formed in his throat at the thought of her. If he knew Ruth, she was in the depths of despair over her own guilt of speaking so plainly just minutes before he "died." Despite the fact that she had never loved him, he was confident that she would mourn his loss at least a little – at least no less than their other colleagues. And if he was being honest with himself, he would admit that he hoped she mourned him a little more than most.

"_I don't love you."_

He could hear her voice saying it over and over in his mind; God how that had hurt. His heart wanted to believe that she had lied to him, but his mind, his logic, told him otherwise. Ruth would not have said it if she hadn't meant it; she would not have been that cruel, knowing how deeply it would hurt him. He felt tears begin to sting his eyes and he wiped at them quickly. He could not afford to be emotional; there would be time later to grieve over a lost love that he apparently never had. Right now, he had a job to do and he had to focus on it.

It was a terrible job; a job that would probably cost him his very soul. But if it would save innocent lives and the souls of his team, then it was worth it; hell, he was dead to everyone now anyway. And then his heart jumped: Scarlet. What would happen to Scarlet? Surely Ruth wouldn't let her be taken to animal services? Someone on the team would certainly be willing to take her, he hoped. And then he shook his head: his life was more or less over and he was worried about his sweet little Jack Russell… His mind fleetingly wondered if Ruth would have found that fact endearing.

Harry swallowed another lump down. He had to stop thinking about her; about them. While there was a chance that he might survive what he was about to do, he couldn't afford to think about it. Still, he wished he could talk to her just once more. That thought almost made him laugh: what would he say to her that he had not already said? She didn't love him; it was not something words could fix.

His heart was heavy when the RAF Linx landed on the tarmac of the USS Ronald Reagan, which had anchored out in international waters off the coast of Scotland. He marveled at how brilliant the military was, both British and American, that they could navigate a ship, fly and land a helicopter in the middle of the night on a sea that was a black as anything he had ever seen; and with absolutely no navigational lights. Harry thanked the lieutenant who had piloted, grabbed his duffel bag, jumped out, and the Linx promptly took off again.

A seaman greeted him. "Mr. Pearce, sir, Seaman First Class Randy Jackson, sir, please follow me."

Harry nodded and followed the officer below decks. Every corridor they traveled down was deserted, much to Harry's relief, and then finally they came to a hatch, and the seaman stopped, opening it for Harry.

"Please remain here, sir, your contact will see in a few minutes."

Harry nodded, stepped in, and watched as the hatch was closed by the seamen from the corridor side. Harry guessed that the man was now standing guard on the other side of it. He could hardly blame the Americans; hell, he was pretty sure that Her Majesty's Royal Navy would never have allowed a spy – even an allied one – on board one of their aircraft carriers, especially carrying weapons. But God bless the cousins for their occasional lapse in judgment, for without them, his job would be next to impossible.

He didn't wait long when there was a knock on the hatch and the lock turned. A man about Harry's age entered. He was wearing a suit and tie and had the look of long-time spook written all over him. He extended his hand.

"Harry, good to see you, although I'm sorry for the circumstances."

"And you, Jack," Harry said shaking the man's hand. "It's been years. I take it you like the desk job in Washington?"

Jack shrugged. "It was time, Harry. I'm too old for fieldwork now." He eyed Harry's gear. "How long has it been for you?"

"Been working a desk for about the last decade, Jack."

The two men sat down at the table.

"This is a bad business, Harry."

"Yes it is." Harry watched as Jack poured two glasses of scotch, handing one to Harry, who smiled. "I thought yours was a dry navy, Jack."

Jack laughed. "It is, officially, but I don't know of many that don't have some contraband on them. And it's not my navy, Harry," the man smiled. "I'm CIA now, just like always."

Harry laughed then and downed the rest of his scotch. "I need to know that you have handled things on your end of Oil Rigger, Jack."

"If you mean are the American assets in the Middle East ready, yes they are." He downed the rest of his scotch then. "I hope it doesn't come to that, Harry."

Harry nodded and took a breath. "And the rest of the allies?"

"Ready, but as I said…"

"Yes, I quite agree. Do we have any idea who gave up the list?"

"Not yet."

"It was probably the French."

"You Brits never give up a grudge, do you?"

"Not really, no, so any ideas you have of donning a blue uniform and climbing on horseback and shouting through the streets, 'the British are coming,' don't."

"Same old droll Harry Pearce," Jack laughed. "Look, I doubt it was the French, there's nothing for them to gain in leaking to the Arabs that several of the smaller countries had entered into an oil deal with the five of us. It could have been the Germans, but honestly, I don't know."

"Twenty years of planning and work to get to this point only to have it blow up in our faces, Jack."

"It was probably madness then, Harry, but we were young. Your problem is we're too old now to blame it on youth."

"At least we were thinking about what was probably going to happen down the road with our oil resources." Harry looked down, then back up at Jack. "More than I can say for many of our colleagues."

Jack looked at Harry's left hand. "Still haven't let any other girl catch you since Jane, Harry? Smart man."

Harry's face turned sad but he let it go and instead spotted Jack's golden band. "I take it Marjorie still leads you round by the nose then, eh?"

"Wouldn't have it any other way."

Jack pulled out two pieces of blank paper and two pens. He set one down in front of himself and handed a set to Harry.

"You ready?"

"Yes."

"Okay, twenty names for each of us, go…"

And the two men started writing names down on their respective sheets. When they were finished they traded papers.

Harry folded the paper and put it into the pocket of his black pants, and then he stood, Jack following suit. Harry extended his hand.

"Jack, take care of yourself, you're one of the better, more trustworthy of the cousins…"

"And you, Harry. Is there anything you need? From the looks of you, you're tasked with handling every last detail of this… I'm surprised the crown is letting you handle this so personally, a man of your standing in the services."

"I insisted, Jack." Harry looked at his hands. "I couldn't bring myself to ask my team to clean up my mess." He looked back up at Jack, "And I do believe I have all that I need now, thanks."

Jack eyed the duffel. "Bet I don't want to know what's in there."

Harry smiled. "Bet you don't."

Jack headed for the door. "The seaman outside will escort you to one of our Hueys that'll drop you back on land." Jack stopped and looked Harry in the eye. "Be careful, Harry. This is a risky business."

"Yes it is. But the alternative is unthinkable; we can neither allow biological warfare to take place in our cities anymore than we can afford to extract our Middle Eastern assets."

Jack nodded and without another word, he was gone.

TBC


	6. Chapter 5

A warning that the next few chapters will feature violence that some may find disturbing, so read at your own risk. It will also feature "Action Harry!"

**

* * *

Chapter 5**

Beth watched Ruth stare at her computer screen, tears still streaming down her face. She stood and walked over to Lucas, leaning into his ear.

"Send her home, Lucas. She can't concentrate; she's no good to us like this… and she's no good to herself."

"I tried that, Beth. She isn't budging. Just leave her be. At least this way we can keep an eye on her."

"You don't think she'd actual _do_ anything, do you?"

Lucas shrugged. "She's devastated Beth, and the way the two of them were going at it right before he…" Lucas' voice caught in grief and he swallowed down the lump in his throat. "I'm sure she regrets a lot of what she said to him."

Their conversation was interrupted by Tariq. "Lucas! Lucas!"

North walked quickly over to Tariq's desk. "What've you got?"

"I give you Operation Oil Rigger."

"Oil Rigger?"

"Yes," Tariq smiled for the first time since Harry's body was taken from the Grid.

Lucas scanned the page. "What has an oil conglomerate got to do with 20 Middle Eastern time bombs in London?"

Beth had walked over to join them as Tariq explained.

"It seems that 20 or so years ago, intelligence officers from the UK, America, France, Germany and Japan hatched a plan to ensure an oil deal from five smaller countries. The trade-off was secured oil in 20 year's time in exchange for weapons, arms and an unidentified helping hand now and again when some of the larger conglomerates that belong to the UAE tried to muscle in on the smaller countries. As Ruth stated in our briefing, what the allies didn't realize was that the UAE figured it out awhile back and planted human triggers in each of the allied countries as a sort of counterbalance to any kind of coups real or imagined."

"And it's called Oil Rigger?"

"Yes, and you'll never guess who the signing British intelligence officer was…"

"Harry," said Ruth as she walked slowly over to them.

"Are you better now, Ruth?" Lucas inquired.

"I'm fine, Lucas," she lied. "Let's just get to the bottom of this mess and quickly. Harry will be very disa—" Her voice caught as she realized that she used the present tense. She continued softly, "He would have been disappointed in our slow progress."

Lucas nodded at Tariq to continue.

"Well, Ruth is right, Harry was the officer who signed on behalf of security services. The other thing is that the UAE wasn't bashful at all about letting the allies know they had placed sleepers within each country, but everything has been more or less status quo for 20 years."

"So what brought this on now?" Ruth queried.

"That's the golden question isn't it," Lucas stated.

"But we're running out of time," Beth reminded them. "In less than 24 hours, these supposed sleepers will somehow launch a biological attack on the UK, and we have no idea who they are."

"What if," Ruth wondered aloud, "someone or some government leaked a partial list of Middle Eastern assets that the allies have in place… and what if their real mission in these countries was not really just to broker a deal for oil?"

"Where are you going with this?" Lucas asked.

"Hear me out," Ruth said. "It doesn't make any sense that any one of the allied countries would have a complete list of either the assets in the Middle East or the sleepers in their own countries…"

Beth's brow furrowed. "I'm not sure I'm following you…"

"Well, it wouldn't do to have Britain knowing who the UAE assets in their own country were because what would stop us from just locking them away somewhere and throwing away the key? The same can be said for the Americans or the Germans… you get the idea."

"So," Lucas continued, "someone from each allied nation had the list of UAE assets for another nation, and the countries within the Middle East had lists of allied assets but none complete."

"And no one wanted to trade with anyone else for fear that it would send one of the others gunning for them!" Beth finished.

"It would be the only way to truly keep the entire brokered deal balanced," Ruth said, "wouldn't it?"

"You're thinking that one of the Middle Eastern countries sent out false intel along with an allied partial list as a way to upset the balance of power…" Tariq smiled as he realized it.

"Yes," Ruth said, "it's the only thing that makes sense."

Lucas looked at his watch. "Well, now we have the why and the major players. How are we going to get at a list of UAE assets in the UK?"

Beth smiled. "If I were the UAE I would have given the UK list to the cousins. There's no way the cousins would give up _their_ list unless we gave up ours, and we wouldn't agree to it for fear that the Americans would just use it to start another war in the MIddle East…"

"We wouldn't" corrected Ruth, "unless our backs were to the wall."

"Which they are now," Tariq finished.

"This sounds like a job for the CIA," Lucas said as he picked up the phone…

* * *

Harry drove the grey rental car through the darkened streets of London. He used a back door that he had left in the MI-5 system to hack into the intelligence network and download a list of the addresses and pictures for all the names on the list Jack had given him. He felt a slight pang of regret to have done something like that to his own team, but using the codes of anyone he knew was not an option. The GPS led him into the South Kennsington area, to a house about in the middle of the block. Harry went past it and around the corner, parking the car a good block away, far enough away from a CCTV feed.

Grabbing the Glock and its silencer, Harry pulled a black ski mask over his head and approached the mark from the house behind it on the next street over. He scaled a fence, and dropped down into the garden of the house of Randall Baldwin. Harry felt his stomach turn at the thought that he was simply going in geographical order, and Mr. Baldwin was unfortunate enough to live nearest to where Harry rented the car. But then, in the end it wasn't going to matter for anyone on the list he had in his pocket.

That thought made him feel ill, but he shook it off; there was no room for emotion on this op and Harry knew it.

He carefully picked the lock of the back door and let himself in. He quietly and surely made his way through the lower level and up two more until he found the largest bedroom at the top. The quiet movements required for such an op came back to him with a fair amount of ease and neither Randall nor his wife stirred when he entered their bedroom. He made his way over to the man asleep in his bed and took a good look at his face with a soft red light, making sure it was the right man. And taking a deep breath, Harry pointed the silenced Glock at Baldwin's forehead and squeezed the trigger.

TBC


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Harry sat in the parked car around the corner from Baldwin's house trying to quell the tremors in his hands. He gripped the steering wheel hard attempting to make it stop, but he felt the sting of tears as emotions he never wanted to feel again came bubbling up, and he felt sick. He exited the car quickly and violently heaved the contents of his stomach into the bushes. He spat out the remaining bile and almost fell back into the car, leaning his arms and head on the wheel, his breath labored with his pounding chest.

He knew he needed to press on; he could not afford the luxury of his emotions. That truth made him angry. In his life there had never been time to deal with feelings; not his feelings for Jane, Catherine, or Graham, the regrets of things he'd had to do, the colleagues left unmourned, the grief lain waste for years, eating away his soul slowly over time. And then there was Ruth… Harry slammed his eyes shut against the anguish of those feelings. His beloved Ruth for whom he could never do or say the right things.

He smashed his hand hard against the steering wheel, angry with himself for selfishly taking two minutes off his schedule, Harry started the car, slammed it into gear and headed for the next closest name on the list. There was less than 20 hours left and 19 names to go - no, 19 people to kill, he guiltily corrected himself.

* * *

Lucas surveyed the Grid and pursed his lips: every last one of them looked exhausted and stretched to the limit. He heaved a sigh; they were no closer to uncovering the list of UAE assets in the UK than they were five hours ago, and they had only 15 hours left. He leaned back for a moment in his chair and rubbed his tired eyes. His contacts at the CIA had been unhelpful, and while he often believed that they simply lied to MI-5, in this situation Lucas sensed that they truly didn't know what he was taking about. Someone at the CIA would have to know about Oil Rigger, but it would have to be someone very high up on the food chain, and it wouldn't be anyone stationed in a foreign country.

"Lucas," Ruth's voice called, "come here and have a look at this, would you?"

He pushed himself up from his chair and walked over to her computer terminal, looking at her quizzically.

"This may be unrelated, but, I was scanning the newsfeeds and noticed a rather odd trend. Over the past five hours, nine deaths have been reported. All of them a single bullet to the head, clean, quiet; some of the victims were literally killed in their beds while they slept, in some cases a partner or spouse right next to them."

Lucas frowned. "And no one heard or saw anything?"

"No."

"This feels very much like—"

"—an MI-6 black op," Ruth finished. "And what's stranger is that CCTV in the areas where the killings took place picked up nothing useful. It's as if the person or persons knew exactly where all the cameras were and cleverly avoided them."

"Do the victims have anything in common?"

"Not that I've found," Ruth responded. "Although, there is one thing that is bothering me about it…"

"Just one?"

Ruth shook her head at him. "You know what I mean… if you look at the times the police think the killings took place," she hit a button on her computer and a screen popped up with a radius lit up and red dots representing the victims, "you can see that the targets started in South Kennsington and are moving outward in a geographical radius."

"As if the killer or killers are working from some kind of list and to save time are making the hits according to location of targets."

"Exactly," Ruth nodded.

Their eyes met. Lucas looked at his watch. "Nine deaths in five hours." He looked back into Ruth's eyes.

"One well-trained assassin could do it," Ruth stated.

"And what would you like to bet that there are 11 more names on his list?" Ruth nodded. "See what you can do about pushing the local clowns on autopsy results, will you?"

"Yes, that was my next task."

"Tariq," Lucas called, "come here please and work with Ruth." He looked over at Beth. "You're with me…"

"Where are we going?"

"To see if we can catch a cold-blooded killer and get to the bottom of Oil Rigger."

TBC


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

They'd been at it for nine hours, and they'd come up short as the death toll continued to grow. Beth kept watch on the police feeds for reports of what the press were now calling the "execution serial killer."

"Lucas, the locals are receiving reports of a man shot dead on the street by a sniper in Croydon."

He frowned. "Not random sniper fire but one man shot dead?"

"Yes, according to this, one shot to the head."

"It's got to be our man. What's the street?"

"Park Lane in central Croydon."

"Near Croydon College?"

"Yes, he was a professor there…. Did you get anywhere with six by the way?"

"No. They're still denying any knowledge or involvement."

Beth shook her head. "Who else could be doing this? Foreign intelligence?"

"Could be," Lucas thought for a moment as he turned down another road to avoid rush hour traffic. "But why would foreign intelligence care…this is really an MI-5 problem because it's in-house."

Beth stared at him. "Lucas, we're sure that this isn't another section within MI-5, aren't we?"

"I've asked all the questions, Beth. No one has claimed any knowledge."

"They wouldn't then though, would they…"

"Even the home secretary has been oddly quiet throughout."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"He says he's been talking to Section A about it—"

"—A? It's not their job, domestic terrorism, that's what we do."

"I think," Lucas pondered, "that it could be a little bit about Harry."

"Does he think we've all fallen to pieces?"

"Maybe. Frankly, I think he's taken it at least as hard as we have…"

Lucas scanned the scene as they neared it and knew they were too late. "Damn, we can't keep following this guy. We have to get ahead of him somehow. Beth, based on the patterns he's chosen through 18 victims, any chance you can pinpoint a possible area for number 19?"

"I can try."

She studied the map Ruth constantly kept updated and sent, and said, "Sutton or Merton."

"Large area."

"This is a guessing game, Lucas."

He nodded. "Sutton it is then."

He headed the car in the direction of Sutton and shook his head. The sun was going down, and darkness would not help them in the least…

* * *

Ruth rubbed her eyes; she'd been staring at the information on the victims trying to find some kind of correlation. And then her eyes narrowed in on something on the page: all of the victims worked at public institutions where a lot of people gather. Ruth stared at the ever-increasing radial map on her computer screen and then brought up a list of employees on her computer, quickly searching through them until one stood out from the others because he was not British-born. And she picked up her phone.

* * *

"Are you sure, Ruth?" Lucas asked into the Bluetooth headset.

"Yes, I'd put some quid on it, Lucas."

"All right."

He hung up, stomped on the accelerator and changed directions.

"Where are you going?"

"Borough of Merton, near Wimbledon."

"Ruth found something?"

"Yes she did… our next victim: Mr. Alik Mayan."

"Ruth is bloody brilliant!"

"Yes she is…"

* * *

Feeling positively bone weary and sick inside, Harry parked the car once more out of the watchful sights of CCTV, and waited. He checked his watch; he still had a cushion of time. He put on the ski mask and the silenced rifle and headed toward the home of his target. It was just past dinnertime, and Harry positioned himself across the street behind the cover of trees, watching quietly through the infrared scope on the weapon, and into the window of the family just finishing their meal. A wife and two kids: Harry had to fight the bile trying to rise in his stomach once more at what he was about to do. He wished the kids would hurry up and go attend to their studies; he would be damned if he did this in front of them.

"Come on, come on…let's get this over," he whispered.

* * *

Lucas and Beth parked near the address Ruth had given them, and they scanned the street.

"How do you want to play it, Lucas?"

"Our best option might be to just go in there and arrest him and take his family into protective custody."

"Let's get on, then," Beth said.

As they were getting out of the car, they heard glass breaking and a woman scream. They began running toward the house….

* * *

To his horror, Harry saw Lucas and Beth heading toward the house. It had always been only a matter of time until his team figured out the pattern – he was actually surprised it had taken them this long; but then, it was Ruth's job to analyze and come to these conclusions and some part of him knew she couldn't have been completely unfazed by his apparent death. His attention snapped back to the present, and he realized he was trapped behind the trees with no way out. He looked at his watch, there was time for neither delicacy nor cleanliness on this one. He removed the silencer from his rifle, made sure his ski mask was secure, and just as his two officers were looking in his direction, he fired, wide, sending them scattering for cover.

Harry took off at a run for his car as they fired their weapons.

TBC


	9. Chapter 8

Thanks to those who review, much appreciated!

* * *

**Chapter 8**

Ruth had just finished sending the text to Beth with the information on projected victim 20 when her phone rang.

"Yes?" She listened to the voice on the other line and said, "Thank you, yes, I'll get there when I can." She hung up the phone and muttered, "Bloody hell…"

"What's wrong?" Tariq asked.

"The alarm on my house was triggered."

"Someone broke-in?"

"No, the police have already checked, no sign of forced entry, but I need to meet the alarm rep to sign off, standard protocol. There just isn't time for this right now."

"Seems like more trouble than it's worth."

"Yes, sometimes. My cats used to set it off—" And then it struck her. "Oh dear, Scarlett."

"Scarlett?"

"Yes, this morning, when I ran home to get a change of clothes, I went by Harry's first and picked up his dog and took her to my flat."

Tariq didn't bother to ask how she got in, or how she knew Harry had a dog. Instead he just said, "Oh."

He looked at Ruth, read the concern in her eyes and felt a pang of sympathy – of all of them, he knew that Harry had been closest to Ruth and he couldn't imagine what his loss was doing to her, nor how she had kept it together as well as she had.

"Look, Ruth," Tariq said gently, "you've already sent potential victim 20's name and address to Beth, and we've still got some time. Why don't you run home and make a quick check? It won't take you that long if you take a cab."

"A cab? Do you know how much that costs?"

"Yes. That's why I ride a bike. But you could do a roundtrip in 30 minutes. And all we'll be doing in the next 30 minutes is waiting…"

She bit her lower lip. "Well, just this once won't hurt, I suppose." She looked him in the eyes. "Are you sure you're okay here, Tariq?"

"Yes. I'll keep close watch on everything, and if anything changes, I'll call you immediately."

"All right."

Ruth grabbed her coat and entered a pod…

* * *

The alarm rep was waiting for Ruth outside her front door when she arrived and she signed his clipboard quickly.

"Thanks, Mr. Phillips," she said.

"Good-night, Miss Brown."

"Good-night."

Ruth put her key in the lock and walked in, closing the door behind her. It was oddly still in the entry hall, but what set her more on edge was the lack of little paws clicking on the tile floor.

"Scarlett? Scarlett?"

The dog did not appear. Every hair stood up on end as it dawned on her that something was terribly wrong, but before she had a chance to move, she was grabbed from behind and held tightly by strong arms, a gloved hand clamped down on her mouth to prevent her from screaming.

The assailant's breath was hot across her ear as he spoke one word to her in a low voice, "Ruth." And every muscle in her body tensed as she froze from the familiar sensuality of a tone she thought she'd never hear again. "Ruth," he repeated, "it's me." She tried to cry out as she shook her head violently against whatever cruelty was being played out against her. "Ruth," he breathed heavily, "it _is_ really me, and I'm going to let you go now so you can turn around and see for yourself." She struggled against him, emitting a muffled scream into his gloved hand. "Shhh, Ruth, stop, please, just stop."

She stopped struggling and slowly Harry let her loose. She immediately backed away from him and stared into the familiar features.

"W-who are you?" She demanded.

"It really is me, Ruth."

"I-I don't believe you. Identities, features, even voices can be duplicated. I saw Harry Pearce die; I was there when—" her voice broke as she relived the awful moment.

He stepped toward her, "Oh Ruth…"

"Keep away from me," she growled through her tears. "You can't be him. If Harry were alive he would have let me—let us know…"

The sob that escaped her lips tore at his already broken heart. "There must be something… Ask me something that only Harry would know, Ruth."

"I can't trust that…anything that's in the MI-5 files others could get access to—"

"—No, Ruth. Ask me something about us that only the two of us would know."

Her eyes locked with his then. She wanted to believe that it was him. She wanted to believe that it was his beautiful hazel eyes she was staring into, his sweet voice talking, and his full lips that she couldn't take her eyes from. She wanted to believe; but such a fantasy could be dangerous.

She licked her lips, and tried to calm her fluttering voice. "A little more than a year ago, a CIA agent who was involved with Lucas, died. I followed Harry out on the roof of Thames House, and we had a conversation."

"I remember."

"He asked me if I still sang in my choir…"

"And you said, yes, that you were preparing Beethoven's 9. And then I quoted some of the text: Alle Menschen werden Brüder… and you said, 'All men really are brothers...'"

"And you turned away, crying."

"No," he looked her deeply in the eyes, and corrected, "it was just the wind, Ruth."

And Ruth Evershed didn't know if she wanted to laugh, cry, kill or kiss him. He looked so pale and fragile to her suddenly, older somehow; but she knew it was really Harry. For a long moment, there was nothing but silence hanging between them, and neither moved. Finally, a sob crawled up from her throat and fresh tears flowed down her face, anger playing across it.

"How could you, Harry?" Her voice was shaking from emotion, "How could you let us think you were dead? How could you be so cruel?"

He wanted nothing more than to take her into his arms and hold her, but he swallowed hard. "I didn't have a choice, Ruth."

And then the pieces fit. "Oh my God. It was you. You're the Oil Rigger assassin."

He looked pleadingly into her eyes. "I was working under the orders of the home secretary, Ruth, I couldn't tell any of you." He could no longer take the accusation and hatred he could read in her eyes and he looked down. "I didn't want any of you implicated in it, and the only way I could think of to protect all of you was to make sure you were not involved and that you knew nothing."

Her eyes filled with contempt and her voice with incredulity, "So you faked a heart attack and went on a killing spree?"

And his patience snapped. "Would you rather I have asked Lucas, Beth, Tariq or you to get blood on your hands? Or perhaps the idea of people who have been implanted with chemicals that are dormant until they ingest release agents that will then spread to the general population through casual contact a better outcome? 20 dead Ruth, or 20,000? Those are the choices that I had to make. And they're the ones that _I_ have to live with, so don't stand there in your clean, protected ivory tower in judgment of me."

She could see the hurt in his eyes, the sickness over what he'd done, and she could hear the pain of deep regret and anguish in his voice. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to calm herself, giving herself a moment to think. It was all too much too fast. Harry was alive, and she could not deny that her heart soared because of it; yet she was unsure that she could get past what he'd done in the name of _Regnum defende._ This time perhaps the cost was too much. All the awful things they'd said to each other, and the truth that she had realized when she cried over his still body in front of God and the Grid. And now here he was standing in front of her, looking far the worse for wear, yet alive. But there were so many lies, deceits, and now even murders in between the two of them. She finally looked back up at him, tears still slowly and quietly streaming down her face.

"Why are you here, Harry," she said, her voice trembling, "What do you want?"

His breath was ragged and his posture slightly bent as he opened his jacket on the left side, revealing the blood-soaked shirt and pants underneath. "I didn't have anywhere else to go, Ruth," he said sadly.

"Oh God, Harry, you've been shot." She closed the distance between them quickly and helped him into a chair in the kitchen. "You tripped my alarm on purpose after you picked the lock so I would come home."

"Yes," he said grimacing from the pain in his side which now felt a hundred times worse because of the contempt he'd seen in her eyes. He leaned his elbows on the table and his head in his hands, his voice muffled slightly. "I'm sorry, Ruth, for all of it. I just don't know what else to say, and frankly, I'm much too tired and in too much pain to have this conversation right now, really."

It was a timbre of voice she had never heard from him, filled with defeat and capitulation. And for whatever else she was feeling for him in that moment, she could not deny that he needed her more than ever just then. And the heart she'd hidden from the world, and the love she held captive there, she could keep from him no longer. She reached down and gently rubbed the taut muscles in his neck.

"It's going to be all right, Harry." He moaned softly in response, her hands lulling him into a feeling of warmth and safety for the first time since before Ros died. "Come on then, let's get you upstairs and I'll see to this wound."

"What about the Grid?" His weary voice asked, purposefully keeping her there a moment longer while her hands continued to caress his neck and shoulders. "They'll wonder where you are; you just came home to check the alarm, right?"

She knelt next to his chair, placing a caring hand on his forearm. "We are going to let them know you're okay, aren't we?"

"Yes, but not until after I have confirmed that the Oil Rigger network is safe with the home secretary."

She smiled slightly at him. "Harry, if number 20 on your list is Mr. Elvin Van Deert of Kingston-upon-Thames, then Beth and Lucas will have already taken him into custody."

He looked at her then and smiled the smile she hadn't seen in so long; it was a mixture of adoring admiration and enduring love. "I should have known you would get to the bottom of it." He beamed at her, and she looked away, slightly uneasy with how quickly they fell back into their comfort zone with each other. And then his look became serious again. "Ruth, Beth and Lucas do need to be notified about keeping anything Van Deert might ingest away from him until the chemical agents in his body have been nullified. It's a precaution we have to take."

She rubbed her hand over his arm. "I'll take care of it straight away, once you're at least lying down. Come on…"

Ruth helped him out of the chair, up the stairs and into her bedroom, where she gently guided him onto the bed. Harry had stopped any pretence of not being in pain on the way up the stairs, and Ruth brushed a soothing hand over his forehead as he let out a long breath of air trying to dull the misery.

"Relax as best you can, I'm going to check the wound so that I know what we're into here…"

As gently as she could, Ruth removed his jacket and then his turtleneck. At another time, she knew she might have enjoyed doing those things, but as it stood, Harry had been barely able to tolerate the pain it caused him.

She gave him a moment to adjust to the pain level, and then realized the wound was still partially obstructed by clothing. "Erm, I need to undo at least the top part of your pants, Harry, sorry…"

"I've waited years to hear you say that Ruth," he joked through gritted teeth, "making me get shot in order to hear it's a little over the top, don't you think, Ruth?"

While she appreciated that he was trying to lighten things up for her, she blushed. "Shush, Harry."

She carefully unbuttoned and then partially unzipped his pants so that she could peel the top left away, and she winced when she saw the damage.

"Oh Harry, this must hurt like bloody hell."

"Yeah, it feels about as good as it looks."

She examined the wound. "At least the bullet went clean through, and whilst it's a bit messy, it didn't clip anything too major." She looked at his pale face. "But I really think we might want to take you to hospital though, Harry. You don't look very good."

"Were you missing the day MI-5 training covered field medicine, Ruth?"

"No, I was there, it just didn't come very easily."

"That'll do then." The thought of it didn't leave him with a lot of confidence, but going to hospital was much too risky. "Look, make contact with the team first, make sure Van Deert is in isolation, then we'll deal with this."

She nodded as she reached for her cell phone. "Right…."

Then he remembered the dog. "Scarlett, come!"

The little Jack Russell scurried out from under the bed and jumped up next to him, licking his face.

Ruth looked over at him. "She sure as hell doesn't mind me like that..."

"Don't be too impressed, Ruth," Harry winced as he tried to adjust his position, "she's the only female I have ever had any influence over at all..."

Ruth couldn't help but smile at him as she turned her attention to contacting the team. While she hated perpetuating the deceit of Harry's faked death, she did understand the protocol with the home secretary. She glanced over at Harry: he looked perfectly dreadful and in a lot of pain lying there. And as she called in, Ruth unconsciously bit her lower lip in the worry that he was in far worse shape than he was admitting.

TBC


	10. Chapter 9

LJS - thanks so for the wonderful compliment a review or so ago, but I think Kudos are doing just fine without my particular brand of insanity - I just hope they don't write out our dear Mr. Firth's character in the process!

And thanks to all those who take the time to review! Onward!

* * *

**Chapter 9**

Lucas looked up at Beth as she walked back onto the Grid. "Is Van Deert secure?"

"Yes, he's in isolation with not so much as a drink of water until the medical team can figure out what to do with him to neutralize the chemicals implanted in his body."

"Good." He turned to Tariq. "Have you heard from Ruth since she phoned in to say she was off the Grid unless we needed her?"

"No."

"Hmm… Okay, thanks."

"Lucas," Beth said, "now that we have this man, can we stand down the terror threat?"

"Yes, I believe we can." Lucas went to his desk and reached for his phone. "I need to confirm with the home secretary, but I think we can at least put the threat part of this to bed."

Beth looked at him. "You're going to go after the assassin."

He met her eyes with determination. "Yes I am."

Lucas hit speed dial and waited for the home secretary's assistant to pick up the phone…

* * *

"Harry, I really think we should get to hospital," Ruth said, the worry lining her face. She placed a hand on his forehead. "You're feverish."

"Fever's not going to kill me."

"The hole in your abdomen might, Harry," she said as she prepared a table with items from the MI-5 field kit she retrieved from the bathroom at his insistence.

"You need to sterilize the wound and then close the entrance and exit areas with 5-0 nylon sutures, they should be in the field kit."

She looked. "They are." And she glanced at him again, noting anew how dreadful he looked. "Harry—"

"—Ruth, stop doubting yourself." He bellowed, his hazel eyes staring into her blue ones. "What, exactly, would you tell them at hospital? Good evening, I have a dead man with me who is quite alive and kicking, although he's a twice-dead spook who was shot by his own British security services team when he was in the midst of assassinating his 19th victim in not as many hours so that a biological terrorist plot couldn't launch in Greater London?"

Ruth just stared at him for a moment before she retorted, "Well, aren't you just a pleasure when you've been shot."

He sighed. "Ruth, please, could we just get this over with..." He swallowed hard, the pain in his side distracting him from clear thinking. "Is there any morphine in there?" He asked weakly.

She felt a pang of sympathy for him, and brushed a hand over his forehead. "Pain's pretty awful, is it?"

"It's a bit on my nerves, if that's what you mean." His anguished eyes looked up at her. "I just need something to take the edge off."

Ruth looked through the items she had and pulled out a syringe and a small bottle of morphine. "How many milligrams, Harry?"

"15 ought to do it, no more than 20," he replied with a grimace. She plunged the needle into the end of the bottle, turned it upside down and filled the syringe to 15mg, and was about to inject his arm when he stopped her. "Not in the arm." He met her eyes with his and said, "The thigh."

Her eyes narrowed at him, and then she tried to lighten the moment. "Is this some clever plot to get me to take your pants off, Harry?"

"Would that it were, Ruth," his voice, tightened from pain replied, "but morphine spreads more quickly and evenly in a larger muscle." He tried to fix her with a seductive smile, "It's my thigh or my buttocks, you decide."

"The thigh it is then."

Without much thought about it, Ruth removed his pants and forced herself to avert her eyes from the tight, black Ralph Lauren Polo trunks he wore; in the brief moment before she looked away, she noticed that they left little to the imagination regarding what was beneath. She knew her face had flushed with color, but she chose to ignore all of it.

"Okay, Harry, here we go…"

She jabbed the needle hard into his thigh as she had been trained to do, and plunged the entire contents of the syringe into his muscle, briefly rubbing the area where the syringe pricked him. Harry couldn't keep the grimace from his face when the familiar burn of the drug hit him; he had always hated that about morphine.

She touched his forearm with her hand. "Sorry, Harry."

He shook his head, swallowing down the pain. "It's okay."

Her fear regarding how seriously he was really hurt resurfaced. "I'm really not sure I can do this, Harry," her voice shook slightly, "what if something goes wrong, and—"

"—Ruth, we've been over this," he growled, "now please, just get it done; procrastinating will not make this go away."

Ruth glared at him, but the pain registering in his eyes tore at her heart. "You are truly one of the most stubborn human beings on the planet."

In an uncharacteristic show of need, Harry reached a hand out toward her. After a momentary hesitation, Ruth took it and sat on the edge of the bed next to him. "Let's give the morphine a minute or two to get into your system, and then we'll have a go at patching you back together."

His hand flexed slightly in hers, his thick fingers moving to interlace with her smaller ones. His voice was soft and husky, his muscles relaxing, "I'm sorry I've put you through all this, Ruth. Really I am."

The familiar timbre of voice had its usual reaction on her, and Ruth blushed slightly, her voice soft in response, "I know."

She smiled sweetly at him, reminding him of a picture he'd seen once of an angel.

"God but you're beautiful, Ruth…"

She shook her head. "That's the morphine talking; I think you're relaxed enough for me to have a go at this now."

She started to break away from him to stand, and he held tightly to her hand. Her brow furrowed slightly, looking at him quizzically.

"I meant what I said a couple of days ago about not having any regrets, Ruth." Her eyes stared into his as he continued, "Even though you don't…have any feelings for me, I'm still a better man because you've been in my life."

She could see how heavy his eyelids were becoming and she caressed his cheek with her free hand. "Shhh, close your eyes, Harry. You're in no condition for a chat just now. Close your eyes, relax and I'll be as gentle as I can closing this wound."

"Mmmm…" His eyes fluttered closed, the drug relaxing him enough to let his exhausted body sleep.

Ruth stood, and began to clean the bullet's entrance and exit points, preparing to use a local anesthetic to close his wounds. She looked down into his face, which had grown so pale; with a shudder, she thought about how much blood he'd lost. For a moment she thought about calling Lucas, but she knew it wasn't really an option – at least not until either she or Harry had spoken with Towers. She silently prayed that Harry would be all right…

TBC


	11. Chapter 10

An addendum for oldmule: You know, I almost edited it out, well, knew I should have, and then left it in. Seems to me that she would have in her head at least a pet name for him that would slip out at some point, so I floated it to see how it would go. In the end, any good editor would have removed it of course; I must remember that I can't leave things for the editor to remove because I'm the editor. LOL. Sorry espiyo, but out it goes - in the end this tighter version will be better all round! :)

* * *

**Chapter 10**

Lucas rolled onto his side once again. He couldn't stop thinking about the phone call with Towers; the man had been distant, evasive regarding Oil Rigger, and he had strongly indicated that any further investigation into the unknown assassin was unwelcome. And when Lucas tried to get the home secretary to at least discuss Harry's memorial, the man suddenly had another call he _had_ to take. Lucas had a difficult time believing that Towers neither cared nor respected Harry's sacrifices over the years to MI-5, and the team had already waited for their time to grieve, so his reticence had to be stemming from somewhere else.

Something was off; Lucas could feel it in his bones. Although it was still early, he arose and padded into the kitchen to make coffee. He glanced at the time; he could easily be on the Grid by 7am. The home secretary might not care who set about killing the 20 names on a list so top secret that no one seemed to know of its existence, but Lucas North did.

* * *

Ruth had finished closing the exit wound in Harry's lower back, and was about halfway finished with the entrance wound in his abdomen when the local anesthetic and morphine appeared to be wearing off. He stirred with a painful moan.

"Damn," Ruth muttered, as she tried to hurry along the process.

She finished a few more stitches and Harry grimaced again. Ruth couldn't help but hold her breath; she hated seeing him in such misery, and to know she was inflicting it was almost more than she could bear. As she finished another stitch, she pulled a little too tightly on the nylon and Harry cried out, his left hand striking instinctively out to stop her. She gently stilled his hand.

"Shhh, Harry, calm down, it's all right." She soothed his brow with her hand. "I'm almost finished."

His eyes fluttered open, and she saw they were colored with pain. His voice was tight with anguish, "Morphine..."

Ruth glanced at the clock on the nightstand. "Too early yet, Harry."

"Please Ruth," he pleaded, his breath turning heavy, "please..."

She continued stroking his brow, her voice soft, "Just a few more, Harry, I'll go as quickly as I can."

He fought against reacting to the pain he was experiencing, but a broken sob escaped from his throat, and Ruth closed her eyes against his agony, letting out a long breath of air trying to stay calm enough to finish.

"Ruth…" he whispered her name like a plea.

She bent down letting her head touch lightly against his, whispering softly into his ear, "It'll be all right, Harry, we're almost done, I promise."

He murmured something incoherent, and Ruth moved as quickly yet carefully as she could, forcing herself to ignore every grimace and cry that emanated from Harry. When she had finally finished bandaging the wounds, she tossed the soiled instruments into the bathroom sink and washed her hands. Gently she cleaned the blood from Harry's body with a washcloth, injected him with amoxicillin, pulled the duvet out from under him, then the sheet, and then angled him back under the soft cotton. She tossed the blood-stained duvet to the floor, went to the closet, and fetched a clean one, which she put on top of him, making sure Harry was snuggled properly under it.

He moaned, fighting the pain of consciousness; Ruth sat on the edge of the bed as she prepared another injection of morphine. She pulled back the duvet to expose his thigh and plunged the syringe into him, once again rubbing the area she injected, this time lingering there a moment longer than was really necessary to lessen the sting. Covering him with the duvet once again, she set the used syringe down on the nightstand, and felt his eyes on her. She looked into the sea of hazel that was still clouded with pain.

She wiped the sweat from his brow, as she said, "Hi…"

His voice was low and laced with exhaustion, "Hi…"

"Morphine'll kick in shortly, Harry. You should try and sleep." She smiled at him, running the backs of her fingers down his stubbled cheek. "You did fine. The wound's closed, and I shot you up with enough morphine to put down a very large bear." She patted his arm as she stood. "Go to sleep."

With that Ruth started away, but Harry's hand reached out from under the duvet catching the edge of her sweater. "Stay," his warm voice was lazy with morphine, "please…"

She sat back down, squeezing his hand but returning it under the covers, tucking him securely back under the warmth of the duvet.

"I'll sit here 'till you fall asleep, okay?" He nodded, swallowing hard to clear the lump that had appeared in his throat. She frowned at him slightly. "What is it? Is it the pain, Harry?" He shook his head no, but she could see he was fighting the tears pooling in his amber eyes. "Harry?" The worry in her voice was apparent as she cupped his face within her hands. "You're frightening me, tell me what's wrong."

"S-sorry," he finally managed to whisper, "I just..." He swallowed hard again trying to push back the emotion that was bubbling to the top. "I'm just very...grateful to you, Ruth."

She wiped away the tears streaming down his cheeks. "Harry, you poor little bear, you're overwrought with the morphine right now." She smiled gently at him. "You've been through too much in the past few days; just close your eyes and rest now." He nodded, but she could see him battling the droopiness in his eyes. "Stop fighting it, Harry, and sleep."

"Are you ever going to forgive me, Ruth?"

She stared at him. "For what, Harry?"

"Everything."

She patted his forearm through the thick duvet. "Let's talk about it, later, Harry. You really do need to rest right now, and not worry about anything, all right?"

And he knew then in his heart that she had not forgiven him for anything, and to his mind she probably never would; this was all just a momentary reprieve because he had been shot. He slammed his eyes shut against the tears that once again threatened to rain down his face, and finally, as the morphine gripped him in its fog, he looked at her with tear-filled eyes, and softly asked, "Sing to me, Ruth?"

"What?" Her voice held a touch of incredulity.

His words were beginning to slur slightly with the effects of the drug, "You've sung in a choir for years," his soft voice pleaded, "but I've never heard you sing."

"The morphine's making you slightly touched, Harry." But the soft look of sincerity in his eyes made her feel vulnerable to him suddenly, "Don't look at me like that," she warned.

"Just this once, Ruth," his low voice breathed, "for me."

He hadn't asked her for anything non-work related since that day in the churchyard; he had, as a matter of fact, slowly been cutting her off from him. And she couldn't bring herself to say no to him in his current state. She sighed, glaring at him.

"If you _ever_ so much as breathe a word of this to anyone, I'll shoot you myself—"

"—I would never."

"I'm only doing this so you'll sleep." She looked him in the eyes. "And you _will_ go to sleep, Harry."

"Yes," he agreed drowsily.

"Close your eyes then," she said tenderly as she stroked his forehead with her hand. And she sang softly, "Of all the money that e'er I had, I spent it in good company… and all the harm that e'er I've done, Alas it was to none but me… And all I've done, for want of wit, to mem'ry now I can't recall; so fill to me the parting glass, Good night and joy be with you all."

And Harry fell fast asleep under Ruth's watchful eye.

* * *

Lucas had searched for hours looking for any correlation between the 20 people killed by the unknown assassin. Other than they were all in service at public places, as Ruth pointed out, and none were British-born, he could find nothing that tied them together. He ran his hand through his hair, letting out a long sigh of air. He couldn't shake the feeling that there was something just beyond his reach; something he should know, something familiar. The pieces just didn't fit.

And then it dawned on him: an assassin who for 19 shots hit 19 targets, cleanly, with delicacy and perfection suddenly couldn't hit two people 20 yards away. And, all of the bullets had been propelled through a silencer, yet the shots that were fired at Beth and he rang out loud and clear. The conclusion was simple: the sniper didn't want to hit them; he fired warning shots to distract them. Lucas' stomach turned at the thought; it had to be someone from British security services, there was no other explanation for why he and Beth were spared.

The sound of the pods made him turn and look in time to see Tariq and Beth stepping onto the Grid, Beth wearing the same clothes she had on the day before.

"Didn't make it home last night, Beth?"

She looked down, guilt filling her. "Stayed on Tariq's couch last night." One of his eyebrows arched in her direction and she continued, "I thought Ruth might need some time alone."

He nodded, not thinking ill of her choice. "Probably right." Then it struck him. "Have either of you heard from Ruth?"

"Not since she called in last night," Tariq admitted.

"Lucas?" Beth's voice held tension, "What are you thinking?"

"That something is just not quite right here…" He looked at Tariq, "Get Ruth on the phone, now."

TBC


	12. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

Ruth started awake from the chair next to the bed in which she was dozing, and for a moment was slightly disoriented. As the haze of sleep began to clear, she realized she had been awakened by the sound of labored breathing and soft cries. She looked toward Harry and saw him struggling for breath. Ruth jumped from the chair and held him by the arms.

"Harry? My God, Harry!"

He was shaking violently, and by his depressed respiration, Ruth knew she had to take action and fast. Wasting no time, she grabbed her cell phone and called 999…

* * *

"Has there been any response from Ruth, Tariq?"

"No, she is picking up neither cell nor home phone."

Lucas picked up his jacket and looked over at Beth. "Come on, let's get over there and find out what the hell's going on…"

* * *

Ruth watched helplessly as Harry was taken out of her house on a gurney and put into an ambulance. She hopped into the back of it with the paramedics, not waiting to be invited. Harry, eyes wide in fear for his life, reached out for her. Ruth grabbed his hand and sat on the bench next to the EMT who was putting electrodes on Harry's chest. The other was hanging an IV.

"Is he allergic to anything?" The first paramedic demanded.

"I-I don't know…"

"Has he taken any new medications in the past hour or eaten anything unusual?"

"He's had morphine, 20 mg, about," she looked at her watch not knowing how long she'd dosed off, "Erm, about 20 minutes ago…"

"Has he ever had an allergic reaction to it?"

"I don't think so, no" Ruth replied, squeezing Harry's hand tightly in her own.

"Has he had anything else? Anything over-the-counter?"

Ruth thought, and then remembered, "Amoxicillin. He had a shot of 500mg intramuscular about the same time as the morphine."

"Is he allergic to that?"

"N-not that I know of..."

The paramedic turned to Harry who was struggling for every breath. "Sir, are you allergic to amoxicillin?"

"Pen…peni…cillan," Harry struggled to answer.

"Same difference," the paramedic muttered. He hit a button connecting him to the hospital trauma room with the doctor in charge. "Rescue 26 enroute with male victim, approximately 60 years of age, in anaphylactic shock from penicillin derivative allergy. Victim has had 500 mg of amoxicillin and 20 mg morphine within the hour. BP is 75 over 50 and dropping, difficulty with respiration and swelling of the tongue has begun. ETA to TMH is 6 minutes. Request permission to intubate and inject one amp epi intravenously…"

Ruth couldn't breathe. She had given him the amoxicillin – how could she not have known he was allergic to it? She fought the tears that were welling up in her eyes, as she felt his hand squeezing hers harder. She met the pressure of his equally, but before she could say anything to him, Harry stopped breathing.

TBC


	13. Chapter 12

Thanks once again to all who have taken the time to review - I do so appreciate it!

* * *

**Chapter 12**

"Do something!" Ruth screamed at the paramedics.

The paramedics intubated Harry and one began assisted respiration while the other pumped his chest.

"One, two, three," said the one pressing into Harry's chest cavity.

"Breathe," said the one pumping the bag attached to the intubation tube.

Ruth watched in horror as they repeated the process three or four times.

"It's not working," the second paramedic stated flatly.

The lead paramedic grabbed the portable defibrillator, turned it on, squeezed gel on the paddles and waited until it was ready.

"Clear!"

He hit Harry's bare chest with the paddles sending 200 joules into his body. Ruth felt tears begin to fall as she watched in terror as Harry's body jumped with the volts sent through him. And still the electrodes connected to the EKG showed a flatline. The paramedic with the paddles increased the juice to 250.

"Clear!"

He hit Harry again with the paddles sending the man's body flailing from the shock of electricity.

Ruth covered her mouth with her hands in a vain attempt to stifle a sob, "Oh God…"

The paramedic increased the juice to 300.

"Clear!"

He hit Harry once more and this time the EKG began to blip.

"We've got v-tach," said the second paramedic.

The one with the paddles put them down and the one bagging Harry's intubation tube continued to pump air into his lungs. The lead paramedic quickly pushed an ampule of epi into the IV line. He looked over at the other paramedic.

"Much too close."

Ruth stifled another sob, terrified that for the second time in a week she was going to be forced to watch Harry die.

"Sorry, Miss…"

"P-Pearsall, _Mrs._ Robert Pearsall…"

"Ah, I take it this is Mr. Pearsall?"

Ruth looked down at Harry. "Yes, yes it is."

* * *

Beth used her key and Lucas followed her into Ruth's house.

"Ruth?" Beth called, "Ruth, are you here?"

There was no answer. Lucas and Beth quickly ascertained that there was no one and nothing out of place downstairs, at least until they found drops of blood on the floor near the stairs. Lucas took the stairs two at a time, gun drawn, quietly following the blood on the floor. It led him to Ruth's bedroom. Lucas quietly indicated for Beth to follow him, and together they entered the room, guns at the ready for action. They were not prepared for the sight that greeted them.

"Oh God," Beth breathed heavily. "What in the hell…"

"Looks like someone lost a lot of blood..."

The bed was a disheveled mess. On the floor was a bloodied duvet, and what looked like a man's black field outfit, also full of blood. The bathroom had bloodied surgical instruments in the sink, and in the middle of it all sat a Jack Russell terrier, who was on the bed, whimpering. Lucas looked at the dog.

"Harry's dog?" Lucas asked.

"Apparently," Beth responded, Tariq told me Ruth picked her up this morning and brought her over here.

"Odd…"

"What is?"

"Most Jack Russell's would avoid a room filled with items covered in human blood; they're bred to flush out small rodents or other game. And if the owner of those bloodied clothes on the floor was an intruder who forced Ruth to help him, this dog would not have just sat here while it happened."

"Why is she whimpering?"

"Don't know, she doesn't look hurt," Lucas commented. His brow furrowed. "Let's get the clothes and a sample of the blood on the duvet back to the Grid and get it analyzed."

"What about Ruth?"

"Let's see if the local CCTV footage can tell us anything."

* * *

Ruth continued to twist the frayed tissue in her hand, occasionally dabbing at the tears that refused to stop falling. The trauma waiting room was packed with people waiting; waiting to be seen by doctors and waiting for people who were being treated. But Ruth was the only one who was there alone. She had kept the feelings of loneliness and self-doubt tucked as far away as possible, locked away somewhere with her feelings for Harry; but if she were being honest with herself, she would have to admit to the terror that had stricken her broken heart at the sight of him fighting for his life. It had petrified Ruth to the core. She couldn't go through the pain of losing him again.

She glanced at the clock on the wall; what was taking so long?

* * *

Beth walked slowly toward Lucas' desk, a piece of paper clutched tightly in her hand. He looked up and noticed her pallor and that her hands were shaking.

"Beth? Beth what is it?"

"The blood, Lucas," she swallowed hard, "the DNA match…"

"Who is it?"

She looked at him, a mixture of relief and confusion in her eyes. "Harry's."

He took the paper from her, and Tariq, having overheard, stood and walked over to join them.

"This is impossible," Lucas breathed. "I was standing right there, holding his hand. Harry's gone." He felt a sickness beginning to spread from his stomach upward, and he swallowed it down, hard. "Who in the hell in the lab thought that this was a funny joke?"

Beth touched his arm. "Lucas, they checked it three times because they thought it had to be a mistake. There is no mistake. It's his." She looked into his tortured eyes. "That would explain," she said softly, "why Ruth wasn't there and why the dog was whimpering on the bed."

"But why wouldn't Ruth have at least told us?" Tariq said, hurt to the core.

"That's a good question, and one that I intend to have answered. Tariq—" Lucas started.

"—I'm on it," the young man said, "I'll check all hospitals in the area." Tariq hesitated as he sat down at his desk, and looked back at Lucas. "She wouldn't have used Harry's real name…"

"No, given that Ruth neglected to tell us that he was even alive leads me to suspect that's true." He looked at Beth. "I've never known Harry to use a legend; his field days were before my time. Can you check the files for all the aliases he's used over the years?"

"Yes." She leaned in and quietly asked, "Why Lucas? Why would Harry have faked his own death to us? He had to have known that it would be…difficult on the team." She looked into his blue eyes. "And Ruth? Do you think Ruth knew all along?"

"No, Ruth is good, but she's not _that_ good. The tears we saw were real." He pursed his lips. "Harry would only have done something this drastic on the orders of someone very high up; and I think I know who that someone is…"

"The home secretary?" Beth asked.

"Uh-huh. He's been very cagey through all of this…"

"It must have been one bloody hell of a clandestine operation that Harry was on," Beth surmised.

"A black op most likely," Lucas offered.

And then they looked at each other.

"Oh Lucas, you don't suppose…"

"Yes actually, I do. It would explain why at Van Deert's house the assassin fired warning shots at us instead of just killing us."

"Then that means that one of us shot him, Lucas."

"I'm afraid it does, Beth."

"The amount of blood at Ruth's…"

"Wherever he is," Lucas stated, "he's in bad shape."

* * *

The doors to the trauma room opened and a nurse with a clipboard stepped out.

"Pearsall? Mrs. Robert Pearsall?"

Ruth stood. "Here."

"Follow me, please."

Ruth nervously followed the woman who stopped next to a doctor. "Dr. Allen?" The man in the white coat turned round to face them, and the nurse continued, "This is Mrs. Pearsall, her husband's the one in ten…"

"Oh yes, yes," Allen looked Ruth over and could easily see the worry and fear on her face. "Mrs. Pearsall, sorry to meet under these circumstances. Your husband is stable—"

"—Oh thank God," Ruth sighed as fresh tears of relief streamed down her face.

The doctor put a steadying hand on her elbow. "You all right?"

"Yes, yes, please go on, I'm sorry…"

Allen had spoken with many spouses and family members and had become an adept judge of both character and the nature of most relationships. While he sincerely doubted that the woman had told the truth about being married to the man, or for that matter, given real names, he could easily see the depth of love this woman held for his patient– that, at least, was the truth.

"As I was saying," the doctor picked-up, "Mr. Pearsall is stable, and we're watching him closely. We'll be transferring him up to a bed shortly." He shuffled his feet and swallowed, "Erm, there is one thing that I need to ask you, however…" Ruth stared at the man, waiting, and finally he continued, "He suffered a gun shot wound sometime in the past 24 hours, which was stitched up, rather poorly I might add… I'm afraid the police will have to be called."

Ruth thought quickly through her options and chose one. She pulled her security services ID from her bag and handed it to him.

He looked at it and then at her. "MI-5…I might have known." Off her curious look he finished, "You're the only ones daft enough to try and perform medical procedures on your own to avoid moments like these."

Ruth felt anger bubble up, but she stuffed it back down; she needed this man to agree to her terms. "Dr. Allen," she said softly, "this is a matter of national security. That man in there is a very important man within British security services—"

"—But not really your husband…"

He read the sadness in her eyes as she admitted, "No, no he's not." Then she continued, "That's not…that's not the important part," Ruth struggled to maintain her balance; it was as if this doctor could see right through her. "As I was saying, he is very important, and yes, I was the one who attempted to take care of him so that we could avoid this very moment." She narrowed her eyes at the man. "I need to know that you can be trusted, Dr. Allen. His life is still in danger if it becomes public knowledge that he's here."

"Is this the part where you make me sign a promissory note of the securities act?"

"Erm," she swallowed, "well, yes, normally that is what I would ask you to do…b-but in this case, I just need you to keep up the appearance that he is my husband and that his name is Robert Pearsall, not call the police, and I need you to pretend that this conversation never took place."

He could see she was flustered, and if he was any judge of people at all, he guessed it was because she was actually in love with the man he knew as Robert Pearsall. "Very well, Ms… erm, _Mrs_. Pearsall. You should know that I took the time to remove all the stitches that were there and put in proper new ones. We have put him on an intravenous drip of morphine and the antibiotic biaxin since he is allergic to penicillin and its derivatives." The doctor smiled kindly. "Would you like to see him?"

"Oh yes, yes I would." She touched his forearm softly. "Thank you, Dr. Allen, thank you for everything."

"This way, Mrs. Pearsall…"

TBC


	14. Chapter 13

LJS - I still trust Kudos to lead us from beyond the fray of S9! Although that is not to say that we will all be at peace with their choices! At any rate, let's see if we can make one more mess of this story before it is put to bed!

* * *

**Chapter 13**

Ruth walked into the trauma cubicle where Harry was lying on a gurney. He was hooked up to a monitor that kept constant track of his blood pressure, respiration and heart rate, an IV line and an oxygen mask. But he was alive. Ruth felt her knees weaken from the thought that she had almost lost him. Again. She cautiously moved forward as she waited for the doctor to pull the curtain closed, which he did after a brief moment. Ruth stood by the gurney, leaning on its guardrail, softly stroking her hand across his forehead.

"God Harry, you gave me a fright," she said softly to his unconscious form. "I nearly lost you again, you stupid, stupid man." She felt tears trickle from the corners of her eyes anew and it angered her. "Damn you for scaring the hell out of me, Harry." Her hand never stopped stroking his brow, but her voice trembled from emotion, "You have no idea what you do to me, Harry. No idea at all…"

She leaned over and kissed him lightly on the forehead just as the orderlies walked in.

"Mrs. Pearsall?"

"Erm, yes…"

"We're going to move your husband upstairs to the critical care ward. Would you like to just follow us up there?"

"Yes, thank you."

Ruth walked along with the two young men while they wheeled Harry from the trauma area to the critical care ward. Ruth stood off to the side, arms crossed over her chest watching, as they carefully transferred him to a bed, readjusting all of the equipment that had gone with him. When they were finished she thanked them and they left. Ruth sat in the chair nearest his bed and knew it was time to place the phone call she had been putting off. She dialed a number and after a few rings it was answered.

"Alpha, tango, Charlie, small-fox one, silver 24…"

"Hold for the home secretary," the voice on the other end said.

And after a moment she heard, "This is Towers."

"Home Secretary, this is Ruth Evershed from Section-D at five."

"Yes, I know, Ms. Evershed."

"I'm sorry to be bothering you, home secretary, but, I need to talk to you about Harry."

"Harry," he repeated non-committally and as if he had no idea of whom she was speaking.

"Yes, Harry Pearce."

As if there were another one. Towers tried not to let his irritation reflect in his tone, "Yes, Ms. Evershed?"

"He's been shot, home secretary. Whilst out doing your work," she tried unsuccessfully to keep the ire from her voice, "he was shot by a member of his own team."

"Oh dear."

"Yes, oh dear." Ruth was fuming at his casual tone. "After we were all lead to believe he died of a heart attack, he was shot, came to my house, scared the living daylights out of me, asked for my help, bled all over my bed, almost died in the ambulance because he's allergic to amoxicillin and I didn't know," the tears were flowing freely and her voice was becoming more and more shaky as the diatribe continued, "and now he is in hospital under an assumed name because he doesn't want to blow the cover you asked him to keep without your leave, with a wife he isn't actually married to, and a team who don't know he's alive, and…"

But she couldn't continue for the sobs that were rolling from her one after another. The home secretary uneasily shifted in his desk chair, moving the phone to his other ear. He had heard that Ruth Evershed, for as brilliant an analyst as she'd proven to be, could be not only terribly emotional when Harry was involved, but could be a completely downright flustered and annoying female. He rolled his eyes but tried to stay patient.

"Calm down, Ruth, may I call you Ruth?"

"Y-yes."

"All right then. Just calm down. I know you're upset about the events that have taken place over the past few days, I don't blame you at all, but it couldn't be helped. The operation Sir Harry was working on was crucial to our national security—"

"—Home Secretary Towers," Ruth suddenly regained her balance, "all due respect sir, but why did Harry have to go it alone? He could have used the support and help of his team, but instead he was off looking like some rogue assassin. I don't understand why it was so necessary to do it this way."

"Nor I, Ruth."

She frowned, not expecting that response. "What do you mean?"

"You'll have to ask Harry why it had to be done this way. He was the one who insisted that none of you be involved. I believe he felt that a black op was the only way to get through the dirty business of killing twenty people in cold blood before they had a chance to kill twenty-thousand. He honestly did not want any of you to have to be involved in such a bad business."

"And just how were the two of you planning on bringing him back to life, home secretary?" There was only silence on the line. "I see. He was just going to remain dead then."

"Well…"

Exhausted from it all, Ruth sat in the chair. "He's not dead now, and we're not going to leave him in a state of limbo; I've been there and it's far too hot and distressing in its simplicity and junipers. Do I have your permission to make him undead, home secretary? His team deserve to know that he's very much alive, and we certainly don't want his family hearing anything of this dreadful business."

"Yes, I agree, Ruth. I'm sorry this had to be so clandestine. I'm sorry all of you had to go through thinking you'd lost the old sod; he's a good man to have around you know…"

She looked over at Harry, who was still out like a light. "No, home secretary, Harry's not just a good man to have around; he's a good man. Good night, sir."

* * *

"Tariq?"

The young man shook his head. "Nothing, yet. If he's in hospital, he hasn't used any of his former legends…"

Beth interrupted. "You don't suppose the two of them would use a play on his name, do you?"

"Would be rather obvious that, wouldn't it?" Tariq commented.

"T'would, but…" Beth agreed.

"What do you have?" Lucas asked.

"Pearsall. Robert Pearsall."

"Isn't that the name of a choral composer?" Tariq asked.

"That just screams Ruth, doesn't it," Beth smiled.

"Where is he?"

"TMH."

Lucas grabbed his coat and was heading toward the pods, when the home secretary and his team walked out of them. Lucas stared at Towers momentarily, surprised to see him on the Grid.

"Home secretary," Lucas finally said. "This is a surprise."

"Is it, Mr. North? You look like you're on your way out to visit a sick friend. Might we have quick word first?"

"Yes, although I do have somewhere I need to be…"

Ignoring Lucas and his urgency, the home secretary simply said, "You'll want to hear this, dear fellow, so let's go into Harry's office, shall we?"

No past tense, no grief. And Lucas knew then that Towers had been in on it since the beginning…

* * *

Ruth walked over to the side of the bed, pulled down the guardrail and sat on the edge. She caressed Harry's face with her hand, eliciting a contented moan from him, and after a few minutes, his eyes fluttered.

"There you are, Mr. Pearsall," she smiled at him.

"Who?" He asked hazily.

"You, Harry. For the duration of this stay in hospital, you're Robert Pearsall and I'm your wife."

"My wife?" Harry frowned, not able in his foggy mind to piece it together. "But you said no, Ruth… you said no," he whispered.

"Harry, it's a legend for God's sake…"

She once again let her hand brush over his brow, but gaining cognizance, Harry pulled away from her hand.

"Ruth, don't." She looked at him frowning. "_Please_ don't." Off her look, he continued, "I can't take this anymore, Ruth."

"What are you talking about, Harry?"

"I'm talking about us."

She swallowed hard. "Us? There isn't really—"

"—Exactly. There really isn't."

Ruth felt a sudden rush of panic. "Harry, I don't think you're up to this conversation right now. You almost died a few hours ago. And this is neither the time nor the place—"

"—Ruth, you never think anything emotionally uncomfortable has a time or place. So I almost died a few hours ago, so what. I'm still here, and inexplicably, so are you."

"Inexplicably? What was I supposed to do, let the ambulance bring you in and find out later whether you lived or died?"

"You want me, you don't, you do, you don't…" He looked into her uncomprehending eyes. "I'm sorry Ruth, but you said no to me."

"That again?"

"Yes, that again. You said no, Ruth, but then you want to be close by me when we're facing some dreadful crisis and you want to comfort me when I'm down, and now because I almost died you want to take care of me – but it will only be temporary and on your terms, and I can't take those terms anymore. It has to be one or the other, Ruth, and since you already told me no, then I must ask you to stop being anything but my colleague on the Grid. You said we couldn't be closer than we are; but that was a convenient thing to conjure, and patently untrue." He could see tears forming in her eyes as the finality of it was sinking in. "It's just too painful for me, Ruth, don't you see that? Every time you touch my hand or say a comforting word, it's like rubbing salt in an open wound. I won't ever be able to get over it if you don't allow me to put distance between us." He swallowed, his mouth feeling dry. "And it isn't fair to me, Ruth. You don't want to be with me, but you want to have my heart and my love in your back pocket for a rainy day, yet I'm not allowed to express it, and you don't reciprocate it. How many times do you think I can stand to be told I'm not good enough to love you?"

"Harry," her trembling voice said, "you're overwrought because of what you've been through, you don't mean this."

"Oh but I do, Ruth."

"No," she shook her head, "it's all the drugs in your system, and exhaustion, Harry. You just need to rest and then—"

"—And then what? It will never change, Ruth; you will never change. You'll never accept my love, nor do you want to let me go. The truth is," his voice was beginning to sound weak from exhaustion but he pressed onward, "you broke my heart when you said no. You broke it into a thousand pieces…"

Tears streamed down her face, but she managed to still the tremble in her voice. "Then why did you come to me when you were shot? Why not Beth or Lucas? What happened to 'I'm grateful to you, Ruth'?"

"I am grateful to you; I just can't be in love with you. Not anymore." He reached a hand out to cup her chin so she would meet his eyes. "And you have to let me go, Ruth."

She swallowed hard, the tears still streaming down her face. "You're right, Harry. I do have to let you go, but I ask that you hear me out first." He sighed, fighting to maintain consciousness. "But not right now; I think you really need to rest, and I'm going to let you do that. We'll talk tomorrow."

He couldn't fight it anymore and his eyelids slipped closed. Ruth slowly got up, put the guardrail back into place and stood by the bed, watching him sleep. Her hand reached out to stroke his cheek, but then realized she shouldn't, and her hand slowly fell back down to her side.

TBC


	15. Chapter 14

Thanks all for staying the course with this story, and absolutely to all of those who have taken the time to review. Attempting to write fiction that has plot and character development for a known quantity like _Spooks_, which is so well written to begin with, is a challenge and takes a fair amount of time, so your reviews have been very appreciated!

* * *

**Chapter 14**

Lucas entered the critical care ward with Beth and Tariq in tow, and walking up to the charge nurse asked, "Can you tell me which bed Robert Pearsall is in please?"

The nurse looked him over, and then past him to his two unlikely companions. "Are you immediately family?" She asked haughtily.

"Yes. I'm his son, Bobby, and this is my sister, Judith, and her fiancé Heydar." He put on his less personable look, adopting a more intimidating one. "I'd like to see my father please…"

The nurse examined him again; Pearsall did not seem quite old enough to have a son in his 30s, and there was no question that Mrs. Pearsall was far too young; but then perhaps Mr. Pearsall had had a previous marriage and started early. "Very well. But he's still quite weak, so don't overtax him. He's in bed 12, over there," she pointed down the hall to the right.

"Thank you," Lucas responded. "Come on then," he said to his two companions.

The three of them made their way down the hall and into the cubicle that was bed 12. Harry was asleep, and Lucas walked up and stood on the right side of the bed, Beth and Tariq on the left. Lucas reached for Harry's shoulder, but Beth's voice stopped him.

"Lucas," she whispered low, "don't wake him." She looked into Harry's face and found herself trying to stifle an emotion that was a combination of relief that Harry was alive and anger that he had subjected all of them to his "death."

Lucas looked at Beth and could easily see the emotions playing out on her face; it wasn't a surprise: seeing Harry lying there, alive, had caused his own emotions to rise.

"It's all right, Beth," he responded quietly, "we won't keep him awake. Just long enough for him to know that we're here."

Lucas gently shook the older man's shoulder. "Harry? Come on, mate…"

Harry's eyes fluttered open, and widened when he realized who was standing around his bedside. He looked into Lucas' blue eyes and could see the hurt but also the relief in them. Beth couldn't keep the tears from falling as she instinctively took Harry's hand in hers. Tariq stood quietly, staring at Pearce, his hand over his mouth.

Harry reached out for Lucas, gripping the fabric of his jacket. "I'm sorry," Pearce said, his voice sounding gravelly and tired. "I really am."

"I know," Lucas said softly, "the home secretary filled us in."

"Did he," was all Harry said.

"Next time, Harry," Beth cajoled him, "could we do it without the Shakespearean plot devices?"

Harry sleepily smiled at her and squeezed her hand before letting go. He looked at Tariq who hadn't said a word. "Tariq? Everything okay?" The young man nodded, but couldn't keep the tears from rolling down his cheeks, angrily wiping at them. "It's all right, Tariq…" Harry soothed.

Beth put her arms around the younger computer tech, hugging him. "Tariq and I are going to take a walk. Lucas, we'll catch you up, all right?"

"Yeah."

"Harry," she said smiling at him, "I'm glad you're back, but if you ever do anything like this again, I'll just kill you myself, understood?"

"Understood, _Ms._ Bailey."

Harry and Lucas waited for the younger operatives to leave, and an air of awkward silence encompassed them.

It was Lucas who finally spoke. "Harry, Towers explained the situation to me, but I don't understand why you cut out your own team. Why put yourself and us through a fake death on the Grid? We could have helped you instead of shooting you because we thought you were some assassin." His voice was filled with barely controlled anger, "I just don't understand why you cut us out."

"Don't you, Lucas?" Harry licked his chapped lips. "Do you really want to have blood like that on your hands?"

Lucas looked deeply into Harry's hazel eyes. "I already have blood on my hands, Harry, and you know it."

"Not like this, Lucas." Harry looked away, a pained expression overtaking his features. "Not like this," he echoed softly. After another moment of silence, he looked back at his officer. "I killed 19 unarmed people in cold blood, Lucas; some of them whilst they slept. What kind of a human being does that make me? What kind of a man?"

Lucas could easily hear the anguish, regret and guilt burdening Harry's heart. "And you saved countless thousands from a biological weapon, Harry; in my book that makes you a hero."

"Bullshit, Lucas," Harry snarled low, "a spook-coward from the shadows is more the bloody truth."

"Perhaps that's why you should have shared the responsibility, Harry."

"No," Harry growled sharply, then after a moment he said softly, "no." He gripped Lucas' hand hard in his own. "This kind of guilt is not something I want for you, nor anyone on my team." Harry swallowed hard, "It's the kind that stays with you and eats at you over time." His voice grew softer and he fought the lump in his throat, "The kind that eventually takes your soul."

"Only if you let it, Harry," Lucas replied softly. Harry shuddered slightly in pain, and Lucas felt a tinge of worry. "Anything I can do?" Harry shook his head, still gripping the younger man's hand tightly. "Ruth went home for awhile?"

Harry's tired eyes looked up into Lucas' bright blue ones. "I suppose…"

Lucas could read the false disinterest clearly in Harry's tone, and he remembered well the scene on the Grid that he had witnessed the day Harry faked his death. "It's none of my business, Harry, but you two obviously have some personal things to resolve, and—"

"—You're right, Lucas," Harry growled dangerously, "it's not your business."

Lucas sighed. "Okay, have it your own way. But if you don't work it out with her, Harry, you're a daft old man." He saw the anger in Harry's eyes, and quickly added with a smile, "But that's just my opinion."

Pearce shook his head, softening. "It's not that I don't appreciate the sentiment, Lucas, it's just…complicated." He let go of the younger man's hand. "And you're assuming that I'm the hold out; but it's neither here nor there, I've resolved it."

And Lucas knew that that was the last word and the end to any conversation on the subject; he also could easily see that Harry was devastated by the outcome, but had clearly resigned himself to letting it go; or rather, to letting _her_ go. There was nothing left for Lucas to say, so he remained silent, but stood by the bedside until Harry had fallen into a restless sleep.

* * *

When Ruth arrived at hospital, it was already after visiting hours, but as "immediate" family, "Mrs. Pearsall" was allowed to visit her husband in the critical care unit. He was asleep when she walked in, so she sat in the chair by the bed and watched him sleep. It was clearly not a restful sleep from the shudders and quiet moans she witnessed, and while a part of her wanted to take him in her arms and comfort him, she knew she couldn't bring herself to be that demonstrative with him, and given what he'd said to her, she was fairly certain such attention would be unwelcome by him in any case.

Her mind floated back to happier days on the Grid when stolen glances, flirtatious repartée and an occasional light touch on a hand or shoulder had been the order of business for them. But Cotterdam, George, Nico, and an off-the-cuff proposal had come between them. It was too much to overcome for her; she had needed to shut down completely in order to survive. And that is what she had done when she had reappeared on the Grid following the devastating events that had led her back to clandestine service; back to MI-5; back to him – she had deadened her feelings. Like a disregarded seashell, her soul begun to decay, and her emotions had withered until there was nothing left but the burnt-out remains of a heart that had once loved so deeply she thought she might burst from the joy of it.

Yet he had taken the time and the care to show her slowly how much he loved her still, and to an extent, things had returned to a perhaps more mature version of what they had shared before she had been exiled to Cyprus, yet still it had been undeclared and safely tucked away from becoming real through any words spoken aloud. Until Ros.

She had heard the grief in his voice when he called in the news to the Grid, and when he had returned to Thames House later that evening, after reporting to Whitehall, she had easily seen what the loss of Ros had cost him. Perhaps if she had really been paying attention to his emotional state, she might have seen it coming, that business in the churchyard. But she had chosen to tuck away the moment she had held him in her arms in his office, allowing him to openly grieve for Ros, and the tender look of love in his eyes when she had wiped away his tears. Tucking it away was so much easier than facing it.

The loss of Ros had almost been too much for him. Ruth had known that they were close; a closeness that she could not completely understand as she had not been part of the team when their bond had taken root. But an attachment was undeniably there, and her death had torn him apart inside, although he had maintained a somber exterior and stoic face for the majority of the team, Ruth knew he had suffered an impossible blow. And then he had given in to it: he proposed out of the blue; out of emotional suffering and a grief so devastating, that at times she was certain it would overtake him. _Damn him for his ill-begotten timing._ If only he had asked her before then; before George and Nico; before that day on the docks.

_If only._

But there was nothing to do for it now. There were feelings buried deep within her; that she could hardly deny following her responses to his faked death, subsequent injury and a close brush with death a mere 24 hours ago: but those feelings had to stay buried. Ruth sighed, there would be no miracle for them; no resurrection of a love lost – a love that was doomed from the start and had never been allowed to taste the spoils of desire. She closed her eyes, for their lives in her mind's eye had always been so much brighter and more beautiful than the truth of their shared reality. His words had hurt, deeply. Yet she could not deny the truth in them. It wasn't fair of her to constantly push him away because of the one emotion she could still feel, fear; to push him away only to try and keep him safely tucked away for her private thoughts, keeping him close enough to not stray, but not so close that he would dare ever express his heart to her again.

How he had tolerated it and was still speaking to her at all, she wasn't entirely sure. And worse, when he had really needed a trusted friend, it was she to whom he had gone. That little fact was almost the most hurtful thing of all, for it spoke to who Harry Pearce really was: a loyal, trustworthy, loving man who hid behind the horrors of his job and the things he'd done in the name of _Regnum defende,_ in order to protect the one thing he'd never lost – his soul. Yet he was willing to entrust the only untouched thing he still had to her; and there she had been, setting about to destroy the last precious part of him that he had refused to give to MI-5 or any of the deceitful people with whom he'd dealt.

So deep in her thoughts had she been, that his soft voice startled her.

"Ruth?"

Her eyes snapped open to find him staring at her in the dimly lit room. She smiled sadly at him and said, "Hi."

"You seem miles away…"

"Yes," she said softly as she stood and moved closer to the bed, "I was."

"A schilling for your thoughts?"

"An entire schilling is it now?"

He smiled sweetly, the habit of his love for her taking over. "Inflation and the infusion of investment money from the cousins."

"I see," she looked down, then back at him. "Harry," her tone had dropped the lightness of their interchange, and his stomach fluttered as she continued, "there are a few things that I'd like to say to you, if you'd be willing to listen for a bit."

His face turned sad, but he nodded. "Of course."

She started to take down the guardrail so that she could sit on the edge of the bed, but stopped awkwardly in mid-motion. "May I?" He nodded again, and she made herself comfortable on the bed, but not so close that he felt impinged upon. "I should like to tell you that what you said yesterday is right." His eyes bore into hers, a combination of anguish and relief at her words. "I do need to let you go, and it has been incredibly unfair of me to have played upon your feelings in the way that I have," she looked down briefly, then back into the pained amber eyes staring at her. "I want you to know that it was not anything that I did consciously; I can't stress that piece enough, Harry." Her crystal blue eyes were like laser beams into his hazel ones. "I would never have purposefully set out to do such a thing. The only reason I can offer you by way of explanation is that on some unconscious level, I couldn't bear to face the world or what we do without having the comfort and safety of your love," she looked away, embarrassed, "and yes, that is a terribly selfish and unfair thing to do. I've thought on this a lot, Harry, and I am ashamed for that part of all of this," she looked at him again, "but it's important for me to know that you understand it wasn't calculated or purposeful."

He nodded, his voice soft, "I never thought you were sitting around dreaming up ways to hurt me, Ruth, but I appreciate your taking the time to come by and say it to me."

She smiled at him, realizing he was done with her confession, and her. "I'm afraid I'm not quite finished yet, Harry."

"Oh."

She touched the back of the hand nearest her lightly before quickly pulling her hand back as though it had burned her. "Sorry, old habit…" She looked down then back up at him. "I promise I'll do better in the future about things like that…"

It killed him inside to hear her say such a thing, yet he knew it was for the best. He tried to keep the ice from his voice, but he wasn't entirely successful, "If you've something more to say, Ruth, best get to it."

Her eyes reflected the sting of his frosty statement, but she tried her best to ignore it. "Erm, yes, yes I will. I do—" Such a bad choice of words, and she regretted it immediately. "I mean, yes, I shall…"

If she weren't about to tell him that she was sorry she didn't love him, Harry knew he would have found the return of his babbling Ruth endearing; but as it stood, it was like a knife slicing into his already ruptured heart. Yet old habits were not easily broken for either of them, and he said, "Ruth, slow down, take a breath." She did, and he nodded. "Okay, speak, now…"

"The other thing I want to say to you Harry is in reference to the day that you well, that you faked your death."

His face flushed with deep shame, and he said softly, "Ruth, I really do apologize for that, I just—"

"—Harry, it's my turn to speak, and I'd really like you not to feel guilty about anything, and listen to what I have to say with an open mind, and don't judge either one of us, all right?" He nodded, fighting the overwhelming emotion rushing his heart when she showed such strength. "I said something awful to you that day—"

"—the part about treating you with coldness, diminishing respect and contempt, or the part when you confessed that you never loved me—"

"—Harry," she ground out his name, "Please give me the courtesy to say my peace to you. Please just do that one last thing for me, all right?"

"Sorry," he muttered, the pain of the previous conversation flooding his heart.

"I know I've hurt you; I know that. I can apologize for the next hundred years, but I can't take it back, Harry. What's done is done; what's said is said." She swallowed hard. "The only thing I can do is apologize and admit to you that I lied." His eyes darted to hers, blinking with disbelief.

"You what?" He asked quietly.

"I lied when I said that, well," she fidgeted slightly, "the part about not loving you, I mean." She glared at him then, "the bits about you freezing me out and treating me with contempt, I meant."

He smiled sadly as a few silent, errant tears rolled down his pale cheeks. "Why?"

"It was anger, Harry."

"At me?"

"At you, and the things we've seen together, the choices we've been forced to share; at the universe actually," a slight smile tugged at her lips as her own tears formed in her eyes. "When you proposed to me, I was so bloody angry, Harry. I was angry at Ros for being so bull-headed in her duty that she stayed in that damned building even though she could have saved herself; it was a wasteful death, Harry. I was angry at the former home secretary for betraying you, Ros, us, hell, for betraying the whole damned country by taking up with Nightingale in the first place; and I was angry that after all the thousands of times I had prayed you would have the courage to show me your heart, you chose the one moment in which I simply couldn't bear it." Tears were flowing freely down her cheeks then, and she looked deeply into the eyes she had known so well and so long. "I'm shut down, Harry; it's the only way I can survive right now. And you chose a moment when I couldn't bear to feel what is truly in my heart for you, to ask me to marry you." Her eyes flicked down, then back at his. "I still can't bear to feel, not yet, not now. There's been too much pain mixed up with the love…"

Harry covered his eyes with his hand, partly from embarrassment in crying, and partly from wanting to shield himself from witnessing her heart's anguish, which was playing out in front of him. After a moment, he wiped at his eyes, trying to rid them of any moisture.

"What are you saying to me, Ruth?"

"Harry, do I need to paint a picture?"

"Yes, after all we've been through, yes you do."

She took his hands in hers, holding them tightly. "I-I lied to you when I said what I said in your office that day—"

"—No Ruth, speak plainly," he commanded. Then his voice turned as soft as a whisper and his eyes implored her to be brave. "_Tell me_…"

"I-I love you, Harry. I have always loved you." A sob escaped her throat and he squeezed her hands giving her courage to continue. "I'm not ready to say that we can have the little house in Sussex, nor am I ready to act on it, but… but…"

The soft and sensual voice she knew so well, the one that became husky in certain moments between them, spoke then, "But what, Ruth?" He pulled her closer down toward him. "Tell me…"

"I can't let you go, Harry," she sobbed, "I can't bear to lose you again." Her voice turned soft and the anguish that was truly in her heart began to pour out. "I've lost you twice already, and I can't, I won't let you go again." She sobbed harder and he pulled her closer. "I want… I…"

He was holding her in his arms, and he pulled her face very close, his voice even rougher with emotion and something else, something deeper. "What do you want, Ruth? Tell me…"

"You, Harry. I want to love you," her sobs were coming so fast she could barely breathe, and then she looked him in the eyes, forcing herself to calm slightly. "I want to try again, Harry. I can't promise that it will be easy, or that there won't be moments when I try to run away from the emotions, from…from…"

"From me?"

"Yes, even from you."

"But?" His soft voice prompted.

"But I want to try. I want to fight for us, Harry."

"'Us,' Ruth? I thought there was no 'us'…"

She looked so powerfully at him then, it took his breath away. "There's always been 'us,' Harry, we just haven't always known how to _be_ us."

Ruth held his face in her hands then, and pressed her open mouth lightly onto his in a soft, warm but brief kiss. She pulled away and he realized she was preparing to get up from where she lay crushed against him on the bed. He let her sit up, putting some distance between them, but he held her firmly in place by the arms.

"Stay," his warm voice was soft, "please…"

She smiled at him then. "Until you fall asleep…"

"Sing to me?"

"You've no longer the excuse that you've never heard me sing," she teased softly. "We had a deal, remember? Just once, and you were never to tell."

His full lips pursed slightly as a smile tugged at his mouth and exhaustion pulled at his drooping eyes. His voice was like a velvet whisper barely brushing across her ears.

"Sing to me because it comforts me, Ruth, and makes me feel safe; sing to me because your voice above all others acts like a salve upon my tattered heart; sing to me because your love is the only chance I have to rescue my damaged soul."

A rush of tears poured down Ruth's face as his words landed home. "Close your eyes then," her tender voice trembled as she spoke to him, her hand softly caressing his forehead, brushing into his thinning hair on the top of his head and entwining into the curls in the back.

And she sang softly to him as Harry's eyes gently closed.

"Of all the money that e'er I had, I spent it in good company… and all the harm that e'er I've done, Alas it was to none but me… And all I've done, for want of wit, to mem'ry now I can't recall; so fill to me the parting glass, Good night and joy be with you all."

###

* * *

The Parting Glass

Of all the money e'er I had,

I spent it in good company.

And all the harm I've ever done,

Alas! it was to none but me.

And all I've done for want of wit

To mem'ry now I can't recall

So fill to me the parting glass

Good night and joy be with you all

Of all the comrades e'er I had,

They're sorry for my going away,

And all the sweethearts e'er I had,

They'd wish me one more day to stay,

But since it falls unto my lot,

That I should rise and you should not,

I gently rise and softly call:

Good night and joy be with you all.

If I had money enough to spend,

And leisure time to sit awhile,

There is a fair maid in this town,

That sorely has my heart beguiled.

Her rosy cheeks and ruby lips,

I own she has my heart in thrall,

Then fill to me the parting glass,

Good night and joy be with you all.

Printed as a broadside in the late 18th century, _The Parting Glass_ also appeared in _Scots Songs _by Herd and in _Scots Musical Museum_ in the early 19th century, although the song and its text are older than any of those publications. The tune is dated to the early 1600s in the Skene Manuscript (c. 1615-35) and the Guthrie Manuscript (c. 1675), it also appears in Playford's _Original Scots Tunes_ (1700), and was published by Sam Henry in 1938 in Ireland. The tune can be traced to the Old Celtic song _Te Traa Goll Thie_ (It's Time to Go Home). The text – at least the first stanza – can be traced back to 1605, when it appeared in a farewell letter written by a man convicted of murdering Sir John Carmichael in 1600, it the poem now known as _Armstrong's Goodnight:_

This night is my departing night,

For here no longer must I stay;

There's neither friend no foe of mine

But wishes me away.

What I have done through lack of wit,

I never, never can recall;

I hope you're all my friends as yet;

Good night. And joy be with you all.

The song was often sung at the end of events or gatherings as a farewell song, and was one of the most popular songs used in both Ireland and Scotland until Robert Burns penned _Auld Lang Syne._


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